His Honor, Mister Mayor Lucas
by Pascal in Quebec
Summary: The ship was his choice. It was his job because he wanted it. It was his career path because he had public service in his heart. Their hardships, ordeals and survival would make it his community and serving his people would become his soul, for greatnes is forged in fire and tempered in tears.
1. Ship out of bounds

The author wishes to express thanks to anyone who may read his story and encourages them to leave reviews, comments or even flame it hard. As with any who try their hand at publicly expressing an idea or story concept, all feedback is important and welcome.

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own SeaQuest, Star Wars, nor any other sci-fi or fantasy series, movies, comics, cartoons or news items used in this fiction as they belong to the creators or broadcasters or publishers who put them out for consumption by the public.

 **SeaQuest**

 **His Honor, Mister Mayor Lucas**

 **Chapter 1; Ship out of bounds**

 **The problem begins**

 _(SeaQuest – season 1 opening them)_

 **Tuesday, 18 February 2020; 20:24pm**

 **Townhouse of William and Janet Noyce**

 **New Cape Quest, Florida, USA**

Admiral 3-stars William Allard Boyd Noyce slammed the door to his house with a furious anger that was just a second away from lashing out indiscriminately at anything in his vicinity. Thankfully his wife Janet had gone out of town to see her ailing sister at her retirement home in Alabama. He had the whole three storey townhouse to himself to mess up and then leisurely clean before she came back.

Bloody fucking NATHAN stupid ass-wipe HALE-the-all-mighty-hero BRIDGER! Why had he thought of keeping friends with that moronic drunken wastrel of a beach bum was beyond him at the moment. His wife and kids kept telling him to dump the waste of space and be done with him. He should have listened to them and done it! Oh, how he rued not doing it when Bridger retired!

Now, however, the foolish redneck idjiot of a coon-spawn had gone and done it! He put the president of the U-S-A on his back! And for what? Just how hard was it to take care of a peaceful, stable, cooperative teenager without somebody from social services holding his hand all day? Had the confounded fool gotten sunburn to the brain during his stay on that piece of shit island of his? Aaaaarrrrggghhh! - **Crash!** \- There went the hallway mirror that he always disliked so much. He knew how bad his days were, he didn't need to see it when he came home at night after some 12 to 16 hours of working himself to death!

William punted his briefcase to the side with an angry kick and practically ripped off the officer's cap, jacket and necktie he wore, dropping them dejectedly in the wicker basket his poor wife had put beside the half-circle console table that was under the now defunct mirror. The little table and its drawers was for her to leave keys, grocery lists and memos of who to visit if she decided to ignore her arthritis and walk around the neighborhood on a sunny weekend morning. The basket was from her rapidly understanding some of the moods her husband suffered from ever since he was promoted to captain and moved from US Naval Intelligence over to a permanent land-based posting as advisor to the White House on ship design and technological comparison with both their enemies and allies.

There were days when Bill came in and, once the door was closed at his back, he would ask himself why anybody thought it weird that so many countries and cultures wanted to burn down the USA and salt the ground after they were done.

He had learned why after just two months shuttling between the Pentagon and the White House. By the third month, his routine included the Capitol and the many multiple contractors with assorted sojourns in hotels and motels around DC to liaise and make pretty with the high-flying industrialists that populate the landscape around the entire military-industrial complex of America. There was so many useless leeches, lampreys and disease spreading mosquitoes haunting the halls of Washington DC that it was a miracle of Jesus's own Virgin Mother that the country was still in any way, shape or form functional. And then he got promoted to admiral and had to add NCQ to his many destinations in his travels along the path of decay, depravity and devolution.

The only thing worse than a lawyer was a lawyer converted to lobbyism! He had seen enough of the briefcase toting parasites in the last twenty years to have the arguments for their extermination down by heart. People had no idea of what the real threat to America actually was.

Forget Russia, China, the Montagnard Federation, the Pan-African Federation or the infantile mewlings of a post-Brexit Europe that was floundering in its own morass. Even Micronesia was a farce compared to the homeland situation right now! It was bad enough now that if anybody pissed the wrong way or showed the wrong piece of skin to the wrong person, all of the blasted Department of Defense would shut down over the lawsuit and then the other parts of the legislative would try to stop funding the DoD in a blatant attempt to force their own religious views in lieu of a solution to the problem. Even if they were wrong, the solution was illegal or the whole process destroyed morality, efficiency and stability amongst the ranks! No! They had money and an invisible sky-daddy that put his hand on their shoulder to compel them to obey; that was enough for them! Lets just buy a politician or a judge and be done!

And now this clusterfuck turned into fubar right on his watch and he had been completely blindsided by it until they dropped the IED on his lap and wished him good luck. Cow-fuckers the lot of them!

Bill walked to the living room and took a bottle of fruit juice from the wet bar before sitting in his favorite sofa besides the dark, cold fireplace. At this time of the day, and with Florida's weather, he wasn't lighting up the old wood burning hearth. But it was his favorite place to sit, relax, decompress and let simmer the problems of his office and position.

Passing a hand over his weary face, Noyce thought about what the President and his cabinet had concocted to palliate to a growing problem that could, and honestly would, degenerate into a full blown crisis if it weren't lanced, cleansed and sterilized like the infected puss-filled boil on the ass that it was.

In the first month of operating at sea after the incident with Madeleine Stark and her stolen sub, the SeaQuest had encountered several weird and challenging events but come through them almost unscathed. All good there, even if most of the official reports were so botched it was a disgrace.

Then the problems in the ship started being reported from outside the usual channels for such situations. The internal social and political situation aboard was deteriorating at rapid pace due to a four-way war of laws, procedures and flat out bigotry.

 **Side 1;** The captain and select officers. Bridger had gone ' _Maverick of the seas_ ' almost from the get-go and left little place for the intellect or aptitude of others in the command chain, which command structure he ignored at all times except when ordering people to file reports that he never checked or corrected. But it was becoming clear that in the daily routines of administering and managing the ship, he did what he damn well pleased and didn't give a flying rat's tail for any opposed opinions, even when said opinions were quoting the law books verbatim. Among the people following Bridger were the Ex-O Ford and their old friend Manilow Crocker with some assorted junior officers and enlisted men. No civilians wanted anything to do with the man anymore despite his scientific genius.

 **Side 2;** Career crewmen and staffers who wanted to manage the ship's activity by the established military Laws and procedures of the USA, NATO and UEO as they are written, not as Bridger's swollen cock feels like on that particular hour. They were fed up of being led by the man's ball's instincts rather than logical, formal regulations and governance. These people were led by the Chief Engineer who was also Second Officer, Lt-commander Katherine Hitchcock. She had managed to gather and organize about half of the enlisted men and commissioned officers, including most of the bridge crew, to her side with her stability and affability. The civilian scientists and contractors aboard were liable to follow her only a quarter of the time, though, just because she was career military.

 **Side 3;** Doctor Kristen Westphalen, the Chief of Sciences, touted her own horn and claimed quite falsely that she also controlled the whole Medical Department when in fact they were independent from Sciences and legally headed by the Israeli Navy's medic Joseph Levine. They did not have to beg private companies for financing per each project like Sciences did as they were a necessity for the ship to function and their budget was assured by the government. Still, she claimed to have managed to gather some two dozen followers from the senior scientists, junior assistants and contractors. That of course meant their financiers could be counted behind her position and so threatened to derail projects if the people did what she asked and stopped working or paying until she was in a dominant position. The woman was not reliable, not stable and had an abrasive temper to make his ears ache even though they were near Australia right now. He still had a bad headache from the last time he talked to her a week ago! Damn! How did the people aboard live with her?

 **Side 4;** Lucas Wolenczak, 16 year old multi-genial super-prodigy, entrepreneur and technical wonder child of the SeaQuest. He had managed during his brief 3 month stay aboard the ship to make friends with almost every person he spoke to or worked with on any type of job. His scientific and technical credentials were solid and spotless. His attitude towards his tasks, functions, positions and societal ranking on the ship were excellent and deserved commendation as soon as they talked. Bill had asked him for an end-of-month report to be given verbally at each month of the tour. Noyce wanted to have a personal feel of the ship's internal ecology, society and interpersonal activities every month to stay ahead of whatever problems could arise. The goal was obviously to avoid another Stark-type scenario where the captain went quite literally ballistic on the neighbors.

Lucas had been the best choice of the thirty candidates to use as a permanent informant hidden under the nose of whomever they would eventually choose as captain of the vessel. He was so young as to not have any romantic or familial attachments in place, nor foreseeable in the next few years. He was impeccably mannered, stable, amenable to working under stress and still got along quite splendidly with many types of personalities. The best was that Lucas was not the type of guy to put his balls on the table and challenge everybody like a rutting elk. Unlike Bridger, Ford and Westphalen; stupid jerks!

Lucas had made fast solid friendships with every person you would call 'blue collar' on board by assisting them in their tasks at least once. Then, he simply worked with most of the bridge crew every day and helped them with the little problems that were not just computers or the aqua-tubes. Most of the junior and senior officers admitted in their reports that they actually used his thoughts and arguments when making decisions, even over Hitchcock. Not that surprising when the woman herself admitted that more than three quarters of the time the kid had the truthful and accurate view of events and people.

The ship's command structure, society and legal apparatus had fragmented in four parts like an overripe fruit in just four bloody weeks in the drink and he just knew that Bridger would blame either the kid or the doctor.

In Westphalen's case he was right and that was going to get rectified soon.

As for Lucas taking the blame and then having him forcibly subjected to ' **specialized, more manly disciplines'** from the captain and some specific crewmen Bridger wanted to select just for that task...

Well that wasn't going to happen while HE was in charge of the UEO fleet! No sir! He knew Nathan had fucked the pooch again just like on his last ship, before his retirement when Robert died, and he wasn't going to let him get away with it this time!

And now the blasted White House had put its nose it the mess! Aaaaarrrrggghhh! - **Crash!** -The fruit juice plastic bottle had flown in the air and toppled an ugly piece of fake-china vase that he had hated as soon as his wife put it on the window sill. Was the woman colorblind or something? Who was it that thinks that shade of shit-brown was an attractive thing to put in the front window of a house? In the living room of all places? He loved Janet dearly but sometimes, he was beginning to think her mind was going the way of their parents and she was due to move into an assisted living facility. Pity he didn't have that excuse for himself. And retirement! What would he do with himself if he quit?

No! Better face the politicians and their cockamamie schemes than face years sitting on the porch with a beer in hand and nothing productive to do with his life and knowledge.

Still... The President... The man was either a genius or a fruitcake well past his expiration date. Even the Joint-Chiefs-of-Staff who were usually whorishly enslaved to the man's folly had been balking at the idea he just dropped on them. William would very much like to know just how the man gets his information from inside the blasted boat when his own informants had all the miseries of humanity trying to just send a bloody SMS or TEXT message out of the hull.

Massaging his head with both hands, Bill wondered what kind of world tomorrow would bring as even now the letters and official decrees were being printed and sealed over at Pennsylvania Avenue, being prepared for physical transport over to the SeaQuest. And they expected him to play messenger boy and deliver them in person so he could supervise the application,of the new Law and Procedures in person. It also conveniently made certain that an admiral and high-brass stooge was aboard to deflate Bridger's ever sizable ego before it burst and detonated the ship with itself.

And what a blow-out it would be! He could predict a childish tantrum of truly epic proportions. Like writing a viking-style saga about it, epic! They would name it 'The lamentable complaint of a failed officer, his miserable excuses to justify his collapsed command and his self-destructed reputation'!

Snort! Bill started laughing out loud like a wild board that just found truffle after a long winter. Yes, good old Nathan Bridger was gonna eat his own pride, bravado and ego-driven swill with a shovel if Noyce had anything to say about it! Now in a better mood, if not by much, Noyce started planning the logistics of moving himself, the Head of UEO Fleet Assets from one end of America to the other end before skipping the second pond all the way to the SQ near Tonga trench where they were loitering, still looking at that bizarre proto-leviathan thingie they had found. Honestly, God! A ship shaped like a blasted quid got itself a girlfriend shaped like a crap-assing giant jellyfish! Who were they kidding when they thought a simple solution would solve the problems on that barge?

Aaaaarrrrggghhh! - **Crash!** \- The cute little terracotta cat figurines went sailing across the room and out the window to crash on the driveway pavement in front of the house. Bill was feeling a mite better now. He could probably set his travel itinerary and call his yeoman to have that ready for the early bird flight on the morning.

Now! Let's see what my delectable wife left in the fridge when she went on the road. Leftovers would be easier to handle than calling for some delivery service. And he just didn't feel like eating anything chinese. He'd had that six times in the last two weeks, it was enough. "Wonder if she ate all the meat balls from yesterday?" he asked aloud to the empty house as he went foraging around his own home like it was uncharted enemy territory.

 **The problem revealed**

 _(SeaQuest – season 1 opening them)_

 **Wednesday, 19 February 2020; 07:38am**

 **UEO Navy diplomatic hypersonic plane #004 'No Man's Land'**

 **Above Texas airspace, USA**

"Yes Lieutenant, I want to speak to the captain in person, on the Bridge, on open line. Now! And make certain that the full senior bridge crew are present along with the chiefs of security, sciences, medicine and Lucas Wolenczak as he serves as both CME and CCA in an officially recognized capacity! So don't feed me Bridger's lines about him being just a child or too young to be present! I placed the teen in those jobs myself, I bloody well will speak to him on the bridge's main monitor when I feel like it! Execute! I will call back at exactly 08:00 sharp on my clock so be prepared or you'll get an Article 32 hearing for general court martial on disobeying direct orders from the very Head of Fleet Assets! Or did you get convinced along the way that the fucking 'Maverick of the seas' outranks me and has a higher office?"

Closing the comm line in the junior officer's very reluctant and uncertain face, Noyce was internally steaming about that. On any other ship, the comms crew would never have tried to pull this kind of shit in his face, and on public, non-cyphered frequencies to boot! And he was aboard one of the UEO's brand new hyper-jets, going at mach 6, which of course means that everything said and done inside the plane or on its communicators was recorded and sent to the backup servers in NCQ as it happened.

What the hell was happening aboard that scow that the crew forgot basics like that? And how could a JUNIOR lieutenant have lost his marbles enough to think the admiral didn't outrank and command the captain anymore? There was going to be some bloodletting on that skiff when Bill got his boots on the deck plates, yes sirree, I guarantee!

 _(SeaQuest – season 1 opening them)_

 **Wednesday, 19 February 2020; 08:00am**

 **UEO Navy diplomatic hypersonic plane #004 'No Man's Land'**

 **Above Pacific ocean, heading South / South-West towards Australia.**

The wide monitor above the backrest of the sofa activated and showed bill the wide-angle view of the SeaQuest's bridge from the four helm chairs in front all the way to the back wall and the walkway over the aqua-tube. At the bottom of his screen, several smaller cameo-type windows appeared and closed-in to show the torso and faces of pre-selected persons. The interesting little program to do that came from Lucas and was well designed and well used during large-group conferences like this. It made looking at the whole group while seeing the minute expressions of the more important people at the same time easier instead of needing to replay the recording of the conference later.

In the wide angle view, Nathan Bridger stood in the center before his command chair. He was dressed in the usual dark blue jumpsuit that was the daily uniform aboard most US & UEO subs these days. His Ex-O was standing at his own station with Hitchcock right next to him, also her assigned station.

The others were placed in very revealing fashion.

Lucas was standing right in front of the communications and sensors consoles, leaning rightwards on them in fact while his right arm was bent across his abdomen which he seemed to be massaging for some reason.

The looks on the faces of Ortiz and O'Neil were murderous as they glared at Ford's back.

Chief Crocker and Lieutenant Shan were standing near Lucas in a way that could be described as either protective or controlling, depending on the facts which were sorely missing. He would tend towards protective though, as Doctor Levine was next to them, behind Lucas to whom he was speaking softly while leaning forward to address the surly-faced teenager while the two sailors seemed to listen intently and agree with the doctor.

Doctor Westphalen stood alone on the captain left side, just in front of the curved Aqua-Tube structure and the guest benches that surround its outer glass walls. She was very clearly isolated from everybody else; probably by her own volition if one read the glares she shot around at everybody.

"First of all, belay your yapping until I give you leave to speak! There is one person who's opinion counts in all this and it's ME! So shut your lying foul-spewing traps Right-Fucking-Now!" Bill glared at the people on the screen and looked at each individual face in detail, memorizing for later conversations. "Lucas! What happened to you? Why are you injured?" he barked out at the teen.

Swallowing past the lump in his throat and now holding his belly with both arms, the teen seemed more angry than hurt, which was a good thing or Bill might have had the pilot do a bombing run against the boat.

"I got into an argument with captain Bridger late last night about some work that I had ordered done in the course of my duties as CME & CCA; the crewman I gave the work ticket to blew me off and never obeyed his orders. When I came to Bridger stating that I wanted to initiate the process against the man with a verbal warning in front of the captain and another crewman as witness, Bridger started barking at me like a dog that I didn't have the right to give orders to anybody, not even in my own departments."

The young man swallowed past his dry throat again. "The captain said to my face that I was just a simpering child, a minor under legal age and so he was cancelling my ranks, positions, security clearance and personal shipboard privileges on that account. He commanded that I still do the jobs themselves though, since he couldn't find anybody decent to do them right. He warned me that he was cutting right away all of my salaries, performance bonuses and expense accounts down to absolute zero since he believes that a child should not have money independent of adult control. His control to be precise. He even told me that he would petition _some court, somewhere_ to seize my personal bank account and my small company that makes the gaseous holo-monitors so I wouldn't think of just leaving them in a lurch and going back to Stanford, independently of his will."

Lucas shifted his weight on his feet and moved his arms to rub his abdomen a bit before continuing. "That's when the shit hit the fan and sprayed the whole boat. I got so pissed off at Bridger that I lost all my means of self-control and started screaming obscenities and threats at him. Loud enough to be heard all over several sections and compartments since the conference room door wasn't closed. That's when Ford came in with his ego in one hand and his balls in the other. He grabbed me by the throat, pushed me back against the big main table and sucker-punched me in the gut a dozen times at full force before Bridger decided to even say a word to make him stop. The defective geriatric rat bastard just stood in the background with a grin while I got pummeled by his attack dog and laughed at my face when it was done. He had the gall to say that ' _You wanted to be treated like an adult; that's an adult punishment for hard-headed fools who disobey the Authority of the ship's_ CO.' And he just laughed his head off like a loon while I limped and stumbled my way to see Levine in the infirmary."

Bill Noyce was fuming like a volcano preparing an eruption. "Doctor Levine! What is the physical status of Lucas as we speak?" He asked in a tone of voice that told everybody hearing it that Ford had very badly overstepped his bounds and would pay dearly, with Bridger next to him along the way.

Joseph Levine was on loan from the Israeli Defense Force, a trained field medic and traumatologist who was also a pediatrician as the army base clinic where he worked for 20 years treated the families of the soldiers as well as the men themselves. He was an ideal candidate for the chief of medicine position and Noyce had personally placed him there, no matter what bitchings Westphalen was oinking that day.

"Shalom, Admiral Noyce; my respects." the doctor began with a small bow of the neck. "Lucas has been very lucky to escape injuries to his stomach. It came close that the inner lining could have detached from the structure and caused permanent damage, possibly fatality if not surgically repaired in the three to five hours following the event. As it is, I was still obliged to take the full battery of scans and had to effectuate an inspection by pellet-camera to ascertain the full extent of damages done. He has severe bruising all around the abdominal sector, there is contusing of the stomach, the smaller intestine and the greater intestine and some muscular cramps in the diaphragm caused by swelling around and on the diaphragm itself. Also, two of his floating ribs on the left side have been cracked and he needs his torso bound for several weeks until they heal properly. The alternative for a shorter recovery is of course surgery to instal metal pins and synthetic calcium aggregate. I have sent the reports on this to you last night. Did you not get them?"

Bill was quite interested to see that Ford, Bridger and Westphalen were all seemingly indisposed, not by the injury report, but by the fact the report had disappeared and Noyce was now aware of that additional malversation. The volcano erupted.

"Nathan Hale Bridger! You miserable, ill-aborted spawn of an ill-cleaned test-tube! What the fuck is wrong with you! First you try do demote and fire somebody that I, your superior, put in place and then you want to go into his life and steal and extort from him! And then you no only get him injured bad enough to need several surgeries to recover, you actually have the gall to stop the reports or the calls for help to heal his health! That's it, you wankering mule's end! You're under arrest! The charges will be filed when I get there in another hour! In the meanwhile, I will ask the Australians to send ships and men to take over the Quest and bring her to port! Under escort and with Aussie crew at the helm! Hitchcock! Seize and detain Bridger, Ford and Crocker! Now! And before I forget; here is the dead-man switch linked to the fuel cells, missile rockets and torpedoes in your holds. If I stop sending the clearance code for more than 30 seconds, the ship will ignite all its fuel and munitions all at once and self destruct that way. So my pretties, you had better do as told and tow the line or you won't live to reach court martial, because you won't see the shore ever in your lives! Execute!"

Closing the window with anger and contempt, the admiral turned to his right to speak with the marine colonel and navy commander who sat there, listening to the entire conversation with great attention and interest.

"As you can see, gentlemen, the SeaQuest is on a course for perdition if we don't intervene pronto. I want solutions, people! Not more problems! Contact your respective outfits and coordinate a takedown of that boat R-F-N!"

The venerable old admiral stood and walked to the wet bar to prepare himself a coffee. An espresso sounded good right now and he would need all the energy he could get when he faced off against Bridger's idiocy in person.

 **The problem exposed to the light of day**

 _(SeaQuest – season 1 opening them)_

 **Wednesday, 19 February 2020; 10:17am**

 **US Navy aircraft carrier 'G.H.W. Bush'; admiralty deck**

 **Australia, northern coast, 250km off Darwin City**

"Atten'hut! Head of Fleet Assets on deck! Admiral on deck!" the watch officer shouted as William Noyce entered the tight, glass fronted compartment at the top of the carrier's control tower. He was in even worse a mood than before leaving the plane.

"What do you mean, the damned ship won't heave-to and be boarded as ordered? Do they know WHO they are talking to, the nitwits? The order came from Fleet Control! What the fuck is Bridger thinking this time? Hail them! And get someone or something on the damned visual!"

Bill sat himself in the chair reserved for visiting VIP's of his standing and glared malevolently at the admiral in charge of the carrier group, daring him to go mushy in the head the same way that Nathan had done. Having both a strong professional conscience and survival instincts after living through three skirmishes against Micronesia, the man backed off and easily gestured for Noyce to take center-stage.

' _Finally_ ', Bill thought, ' _an officer that knows his job and does it_ '. He was still ruminating what happened when the large monitor above the massive panoramic gallery-window came to life and showed the bridge of SeaQuest. It was far more sparsely populated than before and there seemed to be damages to some equipments.

Lieutenant O'Neil came forward, holding a hand to the left side of his head from where a filet of blood was slowly seeping down to stain his uniform collar and shoulder. "Ahem, heu... We aren't having a good day right now, I think... Could you stop sitting on the hand brakes and send help please? We need people and we need a lot more medics aboard fast if we don't want to lose more people than we already did. Please sir, we're all loyal, law abiding people here. Those left anyways... Bridger took off with Ford and about three dozen crew, staff and officers in a pair of hijacked MR shuttles about an hour and a half ago, right after the blow-out from you calling for their arrest. Most of the civilian crew and contractors stayed and helped to defend us against Bridger's partisans, but it got ugly fast."

Timothy sat himself gingerly in the captain's chair and continued after a grimace of pain, still holding his head. "We had running firefights in the corridors for a while. When we saw they wanted out, we opened and closed some blast doors to make a strictly confined passage to the launch bay in the hopes of containing them there until your troops could come and arrest them. Bridger and some of his rebel techs jacked the parking silos then took control of MR 1 and 2. After that, they managed to open the outer hull doors to get out of the ship unchallenged. We lost them because the sensor console on the bridge is out of order and we think they also did something to reprogram the sensors themselves to ignore or not recognize their specific IFF and signatures."

Bill had a bad feeling in his gut about that. "Where is Lucas? Why did he not stop them?"

O'Neil shook his head gingerly, obviously disoriented by his injury and blood loss. "He got hit bad, sir. Right after you shut the comm, Ford barreled through Crocker and Shan to bodyslam him into the consoles and pummel him about the face, head and chest. I think I heard at least one or two ribs snap during his assault. When the guys tried to pull him off, he kicked out and caught Lucas in the belly with his foot. The kid went down like a sack of potatoes and started spitting out vomit and blood almost immediately. That gave Bridger the opening he wanted to pull out his small drop-piece from his ankle holster and shoot out the sensor console. Then he switched mags and told us that we would get our chance to save Lucas if we let them get around to gather their people and supplies. We let them out but as they went, Bridger decided to settle some accounts; he shot Hitchcock, Crocker and Shan in the guts to make sure we had something more pressing to do than run after his group of fugitives."

Tim gratefully took a medical compress and some pills handed to him by a corpsman along with a bottle of medicated fruit juice specifically mixed to give a boost of electrolytes, vitamins, proteins, calcium and pro-active organisms to increase the immune response. He placed the compress to his head where it stuck on its own and then slowly washed down the pills with the juice. The codeine boosted acetaminophen should hold him up until he could be taken to sickbay for a thorough consult.

"as it stands admiral, we have Me as senior officer to hold conn whilst Migs, I mean Lt Ortiz, is down in the launch bay trying to figure out what they jacked or damaged to get out. We have been decapitated and are slowly bleeding out. Oh, and that gribitch Westphalen is still aboard; even Bridger's rebels didn't want anything to do with her so they left her behind in the launch bay hub after knocking her out. Was long in the coming that was. I ordered her put in the brig since she had actually been willing to go off ship with Bridger. She said so out loud on at least three times that I'm aware of. That's about it. Oh, by the way... The sensors outside are offline and the WSKRS aren't responding either. When you get here, you'll have to call and tell us what to do as we are blinder than me without my glasses." the poor man tried to joke to lighten up the situation just a bit.

Noyce nodded his head to the commander and colonel who had accompanied him to the carrier's control deck and answered verbally: "Hang on tight, we're coming in with rescue and medics."

 **The problem is at hand**

 _(SeaQuest – season 1 opening them)_

 **Wednesday, 19 February 2020; 11:30am**

 **UEO Flagship SeaQuest DVS 6000; launch bay control hub**

 **Australia, northern coast, 150km off Darwin City**

Miguel Ortiz honestly wanted to cry like a baby when he saw the head of the first marine come up the access ladder from the shuttle parked below. He almost hugged the jarhead when the guy held him at arms length and started spitting out orders and questions at the same time. Shaking his head, still trying to get rid of the images of so many friends on the ground bleeding out, the young cuban gestured to the guy to slow down and give him a minute to orient himself so he could think clearly.

"Sorry man, I'm still shellshocked by what happened on the bridge a couple of hours ago. We techies finally figured what Bridger did to get out and it's worrisome. He had some backdoor codes hardwired into the very circuitboards that control the ship's main functions. That's why even Lucas's anti-hacker protections weren't able to stop him: the physical parts of the computer could not differentiate his codes from the clock, BIOS and firmware installed. He basically pulled the same trick as Stark. Again."

The man rubbed the side of his nose as he looked at the armored, geared-up marine who was listening calmly, now that he was receiving the intel he wanted. Ortiz continued: "Now, those circuits were the oldest in the CPU stacks and server modules. Lucas had already replaced almost 80% of the native parts post-Stark just to avoid this shit. It seems that Bridger kept a few of the originals stashed in his cabin and simply swapped the new Lucas-made boards for the old corrupted parts. And voila; skeleton key to move around and leave the ship at will. Unfortunately, we can't remove all those things because they control very vital systems and they have to be custom built on specs. Which Lucas has done a tremendous job of getting designed and sent to the workshops but he is pretty much alone aboard who can do this type of thing. That, and Bridger kept piling any other crap he could on him to keep him occupied and out of his hair."

The marine tapped a small black plastic rectangle clipped to the front of his flak vest and asked "Have you got that, Sir?" to then be answered by the voice of Noyce coming from the small speaker on the side of the body-cam "Yes; continue to advance and secure the ship and crew. The two shuttles with medics and supplies are inbound and should be there in less than 10 minutes. Over."

Putting a reassuring hand on Miguel's shoulder, the marine applied a gentle pressure to signify he should move and wasn't surprised in the least when the sailor followed the silent physical cue without any protest or argument. It was apparent the guy was coming down from a long bout of running on adrenaline and was due to crash soon. In short order, Ortiz and the corporal who was escorting him saw pass by about six dozen marines in armor with rifles in hands. Overflowing from their belt pouches and clips were sets of cuffs, tie-wraps, chains and what looked like magic markers but in a weird orange color with a biological warning label. Ortiz turned a worried face towards his escort but the 27 year old just patted his shoulder and said "Lots of gear and precautions just in case somebody panics or has a bad reaction. All the rifles are pulse emitters pre-locked to low stun only, our pistols are tranquilizer darts and the orange epipen look-alike is actually a single-dose spray can with a gaseous equivalent to a mix of Prozac, Ritalin and Valium all together. We've come here to help you guys, not stomp on you."

Miguel leaned back against the bulkhead and let himself slide down to the deck, now totally spent and no longer able to hold on. Once sitting, he folded his legs until he could lay his chin on his knees and wrapped his arms around his legs, locking himself into a defensive posture as his mind started replaying the scene from the bridge over and over again. His own Commanding Officers, the man who designed and built the ship, turned traitor on them and shot at them. Kathy. Manny. Marcus. Lucas. And how many more?

As Miguel began to silently cry, letting fall tears he didn't even feel, he was never aware of the small bit of gas that was spritzed in his face or the fact the he loosened his muscles and canted sideways until he was laying on his side on the deck. The marine helped him lie down and elongate his legs, placed his arms on his chest in the proper position for transport and signaled the first rescuers to come inside SeaQuest to triage Ortiz and put him in the system so they could order a physical and psych eval ASAP. The corporal understood that the sailor was burned out and sympathized with him. He had done a couple of tours in the Arabic Peninsula and been under fire for years before being sent to the Bush Carrier Group but he had never faced the depravity of his own people turning weapons against him. He honestly didn't know how he would react to being victimized by such crime so he gave the downed man his respect and best wishes. He would need both soon.

Standing up and out of the rescuers' way, corporal Maynard moved along to the control console that managed the launch hub and asked his own SeaBee engineer what they had found.

"It's pretty much like your sleeping sailor said, sir." The technician explained while holding up a circuitboard to show. "You can see here they have dates and makers' marks and the more recent board also has this on it: A micro controller with a pressure switch that get pushed inside the device when the panel is inserted in its housing in the CPU rack mount. This is what their Chief Computer Analyst, Lucas Wolenczak, invented to make certain nobody switched his custom designed and built parts for cheap stuff. These would fetch about 15,000$ on the black market for each panel. The fact that the guy manually verified, tested and signed each panel prior to welding his little device and then putting it in the CPU racks himself says a lot about how seriously he took his job and his work ethics. I want to shake the guy's hand when he wakes up. This is the standard for keeping secure stuff secure!"

Corporal Maynard nodded but had bad news. "The guy has been in surgery for almost three hours already. We have no idea if he'll live or what shape he'll be in. Don't know if he'll remember himself even. I pray he does since he's the one who warned admiralty about Bridger's folly but Nature and God don't listen to jarheads. We just hav'ta make do."

Getting a salute from the marine engineer, the corporal went further to talk to a pair of other SeaBees who were near the outer hull, installing a set of boxes and wires. One of the soldiers took out a hot glue applicator and began glueing the bundled wires to the wall and door frames around the launch hub.

"How's the mobile command post coming along?" Maynard asked politely to his guys as they worked. Neither turned to him, the job more pressing than manners, but answered with shrugs and hand gestures to signify it was a standard install. No troubles in view. "Okay, keep at it guys. The CPU's are fried out or unreliable because native parts have viruses in them so we need to take them offline ASAP. As soon as the wire-antennae and the replacement comms hub are online, I want you to tell the other guys to start yanking out everything that looks or feels computerized. Clear?" Getting nods and thumbs ups from the pair, he walked away to his next pit stop.

"Corporal, sir!"

A much younger marine saluted as he approached. Maynard wanted to wince and hide in shame. The guy in front of him was barely 19 years old. What did they think in Washington, when they hired guys so young to be in the corps? He carefully put in the back of his mind that he had signed up at 18 years old flat before even having his high school diploma in hand. Those memories never helped him deal with stuff anymore.

"Yeah, Jacobi, what is it?" the older soldier asked, tempering his tone. Despite the Hollywood movies and 'jarhead' jokes, marines do not in fact spend their time barking at each other, not unless under fire and they had to shout louder than ambient noise.

Private Darren Jacobi stood at ease and pointed at the well hatch to silo 4 "Admiral Noyce inbound in 5 minutes through hatch 4, sir!"

Giving an understanding nod and a sign to move out of reach, Maynard passed Jacobi and went to stand by the access well hatch to receive the Boss of All Bosses, the Head of Fleet Assets. And the blasted floating coffin wasn't even fully secured yet! Did the brass really think them being present would make things happen faster or more securely? Hell no! Bah, what a crap day this was!

Noyce climbed out of the access ladder with an agility that was well above what one would expect from a rotund, elderly admiral of his exalted station. Maybe being fueled by anger, rage and contempt for the bilge rats involved could explain his sudden vigor.

 **The problem is contained, mostly**

 _(SeaQuest – season 1 opening them)_

 **Wednesday, 19 February 2020; 11:50am**

 **UEO Flagship SeaQuest DVS 6000; launch bay & bridge**

 **Australia, northern coast, 150km off Darwin City**

William Noyce was in a flamboyant rage as he climbed out of the access well from the parking silo. The carrier group had called when he was halfway through his transit to the Quest with the sort of news that made him want to reinstate the sorts of public punishments and executions the US Navy had banned a hundred years ago.

Nathan Bridger and his rebels had defected to god-forsaken Russia!

About 70 minutes ago, a russian floatplane from the Russian Navy had been on its way up north from visiting the russian base in Antarctica and given it was an old propellor plane, it needed a lot of aviation fuel to make the journey with the full load it carried. Well, that meant they did a first stop in southern Australia in Victoria City, then in the northern part of the pseudo-continental country in Darwin City and were over the ocean when they spotted a pair of MR shuttles idling on the surface, trying to signal them. The pilot landed his craft, thinking he was rescuing drifting UEO personnel and such an act of international cooperation would bolster the Mother Land's reputation worldwide. Instead, Bridger and Ford asked for asylum and offered up classified secrets as payment to be taken as far away from Noyce and the G.H. carrier group as fast as the floatplane could make it happen.

The russians were already celebrating, damn them! Their floatplane had rerouted towards the region of Singapore where the ruskies had many allies and once at an embassy, Bridger would be untouchable until the CIA could get a sniper to track him down in his new hole and say 'dasvidaniya' with Uncle Sam's best wishes!

Noyce was already expecting the President of the USA to call and bark like a well fucked bitch about it all and then promptly do nothing as the man's term in office was coming to a close and every indicator available showed he wouldn't get in if he presented himself for a second tour. The Oval Office was well shot of him and Noyce anticipated an even drearier future for the country's security and stability as the possible replacements were all beknaved curs and cowards of the lowest orders.

Answering corporal Maynard's salute briefly, he turned towards the nearest staircase and decided to walk to the bridge so he could blow off steam and be civil with the watch officer when he got there. At the present rate, he would either beach the ship in Darwin City and let her rot or he would die of catastrophic heart congestion. In all honesty, he didn't know which he preferred anymore, so he put it behind him and trotted to the command center. It was a good thing he was in a mood to exercise; Bridger had sabotaged the maglev. The flashing red lights above the door frames could only mean the horizontal lift was out of order and would stay like that until Lucas was healthy enough to pull the circuits and change them. Again.

Bill walked at a brisk pace, his thoughts wandering to sickbay and the people lying there, still breathing but in uncertain conditions. Hitchcock and Shan would eventually make complete physical recoveries but now had two weeks of mandatory medical leave scheduled and they would be forced to take it. Then there would be psych evals for PTSD treatments, if necessary.

Crocker could have lived but he would have been a much lesser man if he did. The bullet, despite its small caliber, had drilled straight through his bowels and lodged into the joint of the spine with the pelvic bone thus severing all nerve signal beneath the higher thighs. He would have been paralyzed from both legs and never walked again. On top of things, Nathan's drop-gun had been poorly maintained and the bullets were tainted with grime and verdigris. While Kathy an Marcus would be fine with some antibiotics and rest, Manilow had caught an infection, the first signs were there already. He had infarcted twice on the operating table to date. The blood-toxicity panel showed something had begun to attack his white cells and his kidneys were losing capacity. The report he had received on his military-issued encrypted phone said they expected Gator to succumb before nightfall unless they found a miracle.

Bill was realistic enough to admit that between the injury, the man's age and lessening health over the last decade, there wasn't much chance that Manny would even want to fight. His wife left him years ago, his two kids were in their thirties, married but estranged from him. Decades of alcohol, some soft drugs when he was fighting depression and far too many tumbles in seedy bars had left him with nothing to come back to if he did live. He didn't even keep an apartment since he had lived aboard Navy vessels full time or crashed in base accommodations over the last 16 years. No; without attachments, people wanting him in their lives and no money or wealth to support him, it was foreseeable that Crocker would not make any efforts to survive.

Then there was Lucas to consider. The damages to his diaphragm had worsened and necessitated an emergency surgical intervention. They had also used wired cameras to inspect the inside of the stomach and found lesions that bled but by what good fortune the kid had, the lining had not detached from the stomach's structure so he was spared that. He had received the equivalent of three cerebral commotions due to Fords relentless pounding and there had been breakage in some ribs. His left clavicle had been dislocated but that was actually the least of all his worries and had already been fixed.

There was damage to his left eye from a fist in the face during the initial bull-rush; they still didn't know how bad or if it could be fixed since the priority had been keeping his stomach and head from falling apart. Eyes and ears would be dealt with sometime this afternoon by the team of specialists coming in from the G.H. specifically for Lucas.

There were four dead bodies lying on slabs, in the SeaQuest morgue. That's half the drawers filled up in one event. Two sailors, one civilian scientist and a civilian contractor's rep who were all at the wrong place in the wrong time. They were shot by Nathan Bridger as the wounds and ammo found inside the bodies matched those of Hitchcock, Shan and Crocker. Nathan had really devolved into a blood-rage during his escape. Well, he wasn't finished running, not by a long shot! All the EUO allies would emit arrest warrants and the CIA would shoot to kill on sight. Good riddance to bad rubbish and it couldn't happen fast enough!

Arriving at the bridge clamshell doors next to maglev station #1, the admiral was pleased to see a pair of armored marines standing guard on either side of the valve. He had ordered this new setup for now. Two guards outside and two inside on each door. Hopefully, this would stabilize the situation enough on the bridge and around it to re-establish control and order on the whole ship from the head downwards.

"Admiral, sir! Nothing abnormal or violent to report, sir!" the soldier on the left side spoke up as Bill saluted them lazily. William respected his men but his night had been short and hard, his morning even worse. He wanted to sleep another four to six hours to be top-shape but he had to wait until at least 14:00pm before it was safe enough and he had enough medics handling the critical people so he could lie down with his mind at peace. Nodding towards the doors, he ordered "Well, open up and let me inside. I don't have all day to make pretty and listen to my own voice like some Washingtonian wannabe."

The soldiers chortled in good humor despite the situation. Noyce was nicknamed William 'Billy Boy the Farmer' Noyce because he came from an Alabama farming community and had no patience for the idiots and ass-kissers who flocked around power and its wielders like moths. These folks did nothing of their own and contributed nothing to society except smack-talk some hype for their chosen 'leader'. Bill would have no part of these useless twits, in his job or his personal life and pretty much every rank and file enlisted or commissioned under him knew that.

After his badge, fingerprints and retinas had been scanned and confirmed, he was treated to the welcome sight of two marines standing behind the massive opening doors, pulse rifles raised and aimed at the aperture. Smiling in satisfaction that his orders were finally being followed properly on this boat, Bill walked into the ship's command hub and was pleased to realize that a team of SeaBees had already placed a portable communications server and a free-wave relay antennae in the form of a wire that circled the entire bridge's outer wall at eye level. "Nicely done people!" The older man exclaimed in high voice to be heard by everyone. "Keep it up and by dinner tomorrow it will all be ship-shape again! Carry on!"

Eyeballing Lt O'Neil still sitting in the command chair, Noyce remarked to himself that the man wore it well, without the egotistic presence that Bridger and Ford exuded even at rest. This man had just made the Short List to get posted as the Second Officer; Kathy was due for a bump to Ex-O after her medical leave was done. He would ask Lucas his opinion, but by the written reports and personal letters he had exchanged with the teen, O'Neil was exactly what he seemed and was the man he wanted to back up Katherine when she took up the mantle of First Officer under the new 'administration' to be set in place.

Sparing a thought a the new system, Bill wondered if the President was a visionary to have planned the changes in management and command structure with such timing. Bah! It was just the blasted ship's bad luck at work.

"Lieutenant O'Neil! I see you are holding the fort for us! Well done, man; well done! Now why don't you do as the medic is indicating and go to the infirmary for a checkup, you need it as much as the others." The admiral said with a frank, appreciative smile.

Timothy gave the admiral a gimlet eye and responded in slow, careful words to avoid compounding his already agonizing migraine. "Thank you sir, but the people who have the skills or dignity to hold this chair are all on their backs; in sick bay or in the morgue. I'm what's left and I will not abandon post in front of adversity while my dependents are under the knife or sedated into a coma to keep from worsening the damages. Unless you have a replacement to present to me with their resume and references, SeaQuest will run under warfare protocols until the bridge crew is complete again."

Noyce's eyebrows were steadily climbing up his forehead as he heard the simply worded, even toned reply. Seeing movement from the side of his eye, he gestured impatiently at the four marines to resume their vigil on the rear gangway. O'Neil's gaze never faltered, never weakened and he ignored the marines as if they were not present on his bridge. ' _Yes_ ' Bill thought ' _HIS bridge, indeed._ '

"Are you daring to presume, young man, to tell me who will and who will not sit in that chair? Are you going daft like Bridger? Or perhaps Stark? Well, come on! What are you about, man? Speak out your thoughts, we're all listening!" Bill exclaimed as loudly and caustically as he could. In truth he was intrigued; O'Neil's answer would see him get a promotion or end up in the parking lane. He was a betting man though, and Lucas's opinions on people were right 95% of the time.

"What I am thinking sir, is that this ship has already had too many rutting bulls governed by their balls sit in this chair and rule over us like we were their fiefdom rather than the servants of the Planet's populations. What I know for a fact is that unless the person you present to us as captain passes muster, then they will stay in my brig until I can offload them into somebody else's backyard. SeaQuest has been disgraced, dishonored, maligned and reviled enough. The crew, both military and civilian, have suffered, agonized and payed out in blood and pieces of their dignity for the treason, sedition and felony of the fools who sat in this chair for the last four years. Enough! WE will choose the next captain and that person will manage and govern by the Law and by our terms or they will swing from the ship's elevation rudder in warning to all those who would come to hijack us and turn us into a trophy for their vanity or their rise to a power they don't deserve. Have I made myself clear, sir?" the young officer sat backwards in the command chair, pressing a hand to his head injury and signaling for the SeaQuest's corpsman to come at his side. He then gestured the man that he was ready for the second, more elaborate round of pain medication for his worsened migraine.

Noyce glared mightily at O'Neil, watching like a hawk as the medic took out a syringe, filled it with a drug and injected about 1/8 in the head injury location before jabbing O'Neil's arm and injecting the rest for long term relief. Timothy never wavered, looked away or faltered in his war of glares with Noyce. The old admiral was pleased. For the first time in a full week, he could say that he was truly well pleased with what he saw in this man and this crew.

"Very well, O'Neil. Have it your way. I have US Marines colonel Lyra Dirnova on stand-by, in the launch bay. She came on my shuttle in case we had to do a full take over of the ship. I will give you 30 minutes to go through her service jacket and vet her." Bill took a USB drive from his jacket pocket and held it out to O'Neil who redirected him to the ensign at the comms console. "Okay then, I will be touring Nathan's old cabin to see what the NCIS boys have turned up in the short minutes they've had. Call me with your _illuminated decision_ , lieutenant. Carry on!"

As soon as the older officer had passed the clamshell doors, O'Neil stood unsteadily from his chair and walked to the comms operator and spoke in low tones so only he would hear. "Hey, Morneau; helluva morning to date, hein? Well, about the drive Noyce gave you. Use the following access code, put it through the apps that i'm indicating here, here and those four there. Then I want you to send the reports to the tablet so I can read them. And ensign, process everything on that drive. Is that clear? I want every scrap of data on that USB chip input, scanned and decoded inside of ten minutes flat. Execute!"

Tim walked back to the center seat with the tablet held close to his chest by one hand, the other he used to hold on to furniture as he moved to steady himself against the disorientation and vertigo's he was suffering. Damn that bastard Ford for hitting him in the head like that! And to think he hit Lucas like that three times in a row inside of 15 seconds! What a sub-human animal!

Tim sat back and closed his eyes in relief, the darkness helping immensely to lessen the pain in his head and eyes. He was no fool and knew full well he had a bad concussion but he could not rest yet. And he had just read the report about Miguel being carted off to med-bay insensate because he had started breaking down from the stress and guilt of the betrayals they had all suffered. Migs was feeling terribly guilty about not being able to save Lucas or stave off the worst of the assault. Add to that already crappy situation that it was his console that Bridger shot out before leaving and the poor sailor felt like a complete failure at every duty he had sworn to do. Bridger, Ford and their gang of wastrels had a lot to answer for.

BEEP! - the tablet sounded softly to warn him his reports were in. Opening his eyes carefully to not make himself nauseous, the young officer activated the display and began trawling through the entire trove of data, not just the USMC colonel that Noyce thought he could foist on them like yesterday's leftover lasagna. Hum! Interesting. Very, truly interesting indeed. "Comms, get admiral Noyce on the monitor. We have a winner in our little lottery."

 **The problem is patched, for now**

 _(SeaQuest – season 1 opening them)_

 **Wednesday, 19 February 2020; 12:02pm (noon)**

 **UEO Flagship SeaQuest DVS 6000; captain's cabin**

 **Australia, northern coast, 150km off Darwin City**

Admiral Noyce was not happy with what he saw. The NCIS crew had barely begun going through the cabin's furniture and filing cabinets that they had already found two smoking guns in the papers and documents strewn about rather carelessly by the ex-occupant. It seemed that Nathan had been quite unbothered by the basics of housekeeping in the few weeks he had occupied the captaincy. Everything was piled haphazardly, cluttered on flat surfaces and jammed in nooks like the spaces in the couch between the frame and cushions. That was an old habit he had, that Carol Bridger had harped her husband about all the time. During the conception phase of the ship, Nathan used to sit at home in the living room with pieces of paper stuck in every hole he could reach from his seat at the large professional drawing table he had placed there. He had set himself in a public area of the house to stay accessible to his wife and only child, even when he worked long 14 and 18 hour days. He had been the same during the build. His office at the shipyard had been a nightmare to navigate if you didn't know the man's ordering (shelving) system. Bill had joked several times that he would report his old friend to the NCQ social services as a hoarder to get him some help.

Maybe he should have carried out that thought. Maybe he could have avoided this if he had been more present and tried to help more after Robert and Carol left them. Nathan had slowly drifted into depression, alcohol and isolation after Robert's death. He had truly sunk to the depths after Carol's passing during that God-awful typhoon-spawned tropical storm that ravaged their island for three solid days. They had no radio, cellphone or emails; the seas were impassible and nobody could hear the pleas for help, if there had been any. And that had been the true tragedy of Carol's death; Nathan had been passed out from drunkenness in the basement workshop where he was milling some metal for their small boat's engine. Carol had gone out alone to batten the storm shutters and lock down the garden shed and boat shed. As she walked back to the house, debris set flying by the EF-3 winds struck her head and she passed out on the kitchen floor as she tried to take aspirin for the pain and apply a compress to her bleeding injury. Nathan found her, bled to death on the floor, alone and forgotten, almost 11 hours later when he woke up from his alcoholic black-out. She still had the 8 inch piece of broken tree branch stuck in her injury, through the skull bone and into the brain where it had nicked veins and insured her slow but inexorable death.

Nathan had cried himself to sleep on the floor with and arm around her body and a bottle of rum in the other. He experienced another drunkenness black-out and woke up when a neighbor from the other island saw the damages from the storm on the house and came into the building to ask if they were alright. It was that elderly neighbor who called the coast guard and got Nathan into a hospital where Carol's body was autopsied and they concluded to a simple accidental death.

Nathan believed hard as steel that he had murdered her by his sheer negligence and indignity.

Bill's wife, kids and grand-kids were of the same opinion, actually. Bill himself had seen enough of his good friends break and erode away to nothing under the relentless assaults of PTSD that he wasn't about to let his oldest living academy buddy go out into the fog of forgetfulness alone. If only he had been more actively involved in the last seven years since Robert was gone...

"Admiral, sir. I have bad news, sir. We found some papers sir, and we think we have Bridger's motive for how he was acting during the few weeks he was aboard." The lead NCIS agent told him as hes handed a stack of loose papers which had been tagged and numbered with fluorescent yellow Post-It labels. "Basically, captain Bridger has believed for the last seven years that his son's posting aboard the older Ticonderoga-class cruiser CG-70 USS Lake Erie was not accidental. He dug up orders, posting affectations and private emails between the SecNav of the time and the Chief-of-staff for the Navy that indicate they knew Robert was his son and they wanted a way to punish the father by sidelining the son to an inglorious posting somewhere he wouldn't have any chance to make a name for himself or use daddy's name to get by. The placed him in an aging old can in the bottom of the South Pacific where they thought nothing would happen, unless the ship's many mechanical problems got worse than they already were." The agent paused to gather his thoughts while Bill rifled through the chaotically classed sheets.

"Some of these Nathan would not have had access to until recently since they would have been subject to classification and OpSec protocols against use outside the Services. How did he get them? No, don't bother; I know: Lucas. He must have concocted some bullshit to feed the kid about a job he was doing for me and Lucas would have bored like a worm to get the juicy stuff, no matter where they hid it. I'll confirm with him when he wakes up enough to talk. What else?" Bill commented.

The field agent swallowed and answered, cursing his unlucky star for being the one to tell the admiral how much passed the deep end his old friend had gone. "We found in some of these pages damning evidence that the SecNav and CoS for Navy knew the Lake Erie had engine and life support troubles that should have been cause for a stay in drydock to fix them. They were also aware, along with the assistant secretary of the Navy and the chief quartermaster that she had begun experiencing instabilities in her mainframe processors and also the AEGIS and SPY-1 arrays were fritzing on-and-off for a few days just before they signed the orders that affected Robert Bridger to her. They knew all this when they assigned her to go patrol the Micronesia border and pacify the skirmish instead of routing her to Pearl Harbor for the four months of drydock work the techs had prescribed to fix her problems and keep her active until her scheduled scrapping date in 2018. They really fucked the bitch on this, sir. There is material proof that these people had a grudge against Nathan Hale Bridger and his SeaQuest Project but could not touch him so they went after his son instead. There is clear proof in the emails that when the ship didn't have the fatal conniption they hoped for and Robert didn't die from injuries of the accident they hoped would happen, they made a clear and conscious choice to endanger the entire ship and crew complement to achieve their goal. They are murders and traitors, sir. And with proof finally in hand, well sir, Bridger self-radicalized."

Bill Noyce was taken aback by the depths of depravity he saw in his hands. Those emails were a blasphemy against the very concept of Public Service and Armed Service in all of human culture and history. When a governing body is ready to send hundreds of servicemen to the meat grinder just to eliminate one person for the pettiness of political vengeance, then that government has lost all legality, legitimacy or morality and the only recourse left is insurrection.

"Sir, That sheet here is the proof that Bridger tried to get the US President to see what had been done to his family by these people. The Stamps and dates show clearly that both the email versions and the solid papers reached the Oval Office and were acknowledged. This here is the current President's signature in pen ink, manually applied. And his response is nothing but insulting, sir. He basically told Bridger that it was all ancient history and didn't want to get involved in a clan vendetta just on the last year of his only mandate in the Oval Office. He says the captain should wait another year for the elections to pass and take it all up with the new president in January 2021. From then on, we can easily see what happened. Bridger's mind fractured, he turned a possible mess into a destructive obsession and then when you came in with new Law and Protocols to follow, he snapped. My guess is that he had been simmering on his rage for two weeks since that is when he got the US President's email response to his inquiries for justice against the conspirators."

Bill Noyce was feeling light headed as he contemplated the fullness of the mess on his table. And he understood how and why his old friend had gone bonkers and jumped the fence to the other guys. That a country asked for sacrifice was acceptable when the goals were truly noble and useful to the cause. What they did here however, was throw some 450 men to the trash just to hurt someone who had already been on the path to retirement and a teaching post at a low-key community technical college in Florida, near his island home. What kind of shite was this? What kind of people did this?

"Bridge to admiral Noyce; Lieutenant O'Neil for you, sir."

"Put him on the viewer on the wall. I want to hear what he came up with. It oughta be good."

As the image came up, Noyce could see that O'Neil was sitting a bit straighter and a bit firmer. A good sign the man was ready to fight for what he believed would be best for the ship. That was something Bill wanted to see and hear as it would tell him if the SeaQuest, as a concept, could be salvaged.

"Admiral Noyce, sir. After due consideration of the options presented to me, I would nominate Canada Coast Guard captain Eugene Darby as new commanding officer for the SeaQuest. He is already a ranking captain, has much naval expertise and comes from the sort of 'help first – shoot maybe' kind of formation and philosophy that we need on a ship with the crew and mission mandate that the UEO flagship carries. Colonel Dirnova would however make an exceptional replacement for Crocker and we would gladly welcome her with open arms. The two other names I see here, Lt James Brody and Lt Eleanor Henderson, I also want. I have open slots in the security and communications rotations that need filling ASAP and if they are aboard the Bush Group's ship's, then I want them now. The other ones in here, those four reprobates crewman 3rd Anthony Piccolo, crewman 3rd Edward Williams, yeoman Myrna Themis and ensign Lisbeth Ohnohura. Keep them on ice until I can get Lucas digging into them. Two master divers, a cybernetics engineer and a servers & networking technician who worked with neuronal mainframes at MIT. Yes, I can use those, or Lucas would know how to utilize them, if only to delegate the jobs from his two departments so he could concentrate more on technical development and scientific projects he had to backbench because Bridger was dumping too much on him."

Noyce had a wide smile as he said "Well chosen, Lieutenant. I will have colonel Dirnova relieve you and have the others here inside an hour. Including our four loose cannons. Noyce out."


	2. News and novelties

The author wishes to express thanks to anyone who may read his story and encourages them to leave reviews, comments or even flame it hard. As with any who try their hand at publicly expressing an idea or story concept, all feedback is important and welcome.

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own SeaQuest, Star Wars, nor any other sci-fi or fantasy series, movies, comics, cartoons or news items used in this fiction as they belong to the creators or broadcasters or publishers who put them out for consumption by the public.

 **SeaQuest**

 **His Honor, Mister Mayor Lucas**

 **Chapter 2; news and novelties**

 **Med-bay visitations**

 _(SeaQuest – season 1 opening theme)_

 **Wednesday, 19 February 2020; 14:00pm**

 **UEO Flagship SeaQuest DVS 6000; main infirmary & Dr Levine's office**

 **Australia, northern coast, 75km off Darwin City**

Bill Noyce walked slowly from the officer's enclosed mess hall where he had luncheoned and directed his measured paces towards the infirmary. At long last, the emergency interventions on Lucas were done and the boy was being set up in Intensive Care Unit #1 (ICU-1) next to Manilow Crocker who occupied ICU-2 already. Hitchcock and Shan having suffered much less critical injuries had already undergone their own bullet extractions and been patched up so they were placed in the regular convalescence rooms 1 and 2. Bill planned on checking in on them as he passed by.

Arriving in med-bay, he was again glad to see his orders for securing the place had been followed to the letter. Four marines in body armor with pulse rifles in hand were stationed in the waiting room and ready to intervene. The nurse at the reception / monitoring station looked haggard and worn out, an appearance shared by all the medics and nurses moving around to take care of their injured comrades.

The admiral knocked his knuckles on the control desk like the front door to a house to get the woman's attention. She almost jumped out of her skin at the sound as she had been incredibly focused on her tasks of writing the vitals and prescriptions of each patient in house at the moment. She blinked owlishly for a few seconds as her brain changed tracks to process whom it was that interrupted her.

"Admiral, sir. The patients are not completely ready for visits yet. Doctors Levine and Saritsatva are changing out of their scrubs and will be ready for you in Levine's office in about ten minutes. It's that door over there on the left."

Nodding in thanks, the older man just turned around and made his way to the office without preamble. The marines could sense the officer's frustrations and anger wafting off of him so they stayed put but attentive in case they were called to act.

Beep! - Noyce's PAL signaled. Taking the offending piece of plastic from his shirt pocket, he pushed the button to open the line and saw on the LCD that it was the bridge calling. "Yes, colonel Dirnova; what happened this time?" He asked in an exasperated tone. The marine colonel was excellent at her job and never needed to held by the hand. The only time she called was when something was truly out of her jurisdiction or above her pay grade.

"My apologies for the distraction, admiral, but the prisoner has asked to see you. She finally woke up from the head trauma and has ascertained her locality. She is most adamant on speaking with you. I have informed her that your scheduling and time are not hers to dispose of but she seems incapable of grasping such basic concepts as which side of the bars she is on. End of message, sir."

"Message received, colonel. Carry on towards Darwin City and make sure that all the newbies are lodged for the night. O'Neil and Krieg will handle things tomorrow on their shift." On a more amused note, he added "Just don't let the damned Beaver lower the ship's temperature again! It's cold enough as it is and not everybody was born on a glacial plain like he was!"

Dirnova's laughter was heard in the speaker as she had to admit that the new CO's first order when coming aboard to lower the ship-wide temps by five degrees was indeed amusing, and funny fodder for the scuttlebutt to grind. "I will make certain the canadian does not turn our men and allies to popsicles on your watch, sir. You can count on me, sir." Her own playful response had Noyce chuckling too.

He had just placed the PAL back in his pocket when the two doctors came in, looking harried and tired to the point of exhaustion. They both sat on the far side of the desk, their backs to the wall, and began opening and spreading paper versions of the patient files they would discuss with him. "Go from the simplest to the biggest case. Finish with Lucas anyways, as I have specific questions about his health." the officer told them calmly. They were good men, on the side of Law and Order, not mindless tools like Ford or Westphalen. No need to get rough on them.

"Firstly admiral, would you like some tea? It is Darjeeling imported directly from India. I find it soothes the nerves after prolonged hours in the operating theater." Doctor Meetha Saritsatva offered kindly while pointing the electric kettle that sat on Levine's cabinet, at the wall opposite the desk.

Noyce eyed both doctors, pursing his lips in thought as he remembered their service records.

Meetha Saritsatva, woman, born in1956, white caucasian with slightly beige tone to her skin. British citizen of mixed ancestry; her father was Indian as were both of his parents while her mother and her own parents were from the port city of Dartmouth in England. She had studied medicine in England, France and Germany before joining the UN Humanitarian Relief troops straight out of her last university course. Civilian through and through, no military or law enforcement training. She was specialized in traumatology, urgentology, weapons injuries and explosives injuries. She had level 4 HAZMAT certifications up to code as her deployment required. She was a Hindu leftist, bleeding-heart liberal but with a head on her shoulders for dealing with crises and stable enough to be sent out to the front under fire if need be. Bill liked her and had posted her on board for several reasons that were still valid.

Joseph Levine, male, born in 1952, olive-toned skin. Israeli citizen and ancestry on both sides from the region of Nazareth. Trained as field-medic by the Israeli Defense Forces which he still served today after some forty-five years. He had been loaned by the IDF to the UN's Blue Helmets in 1998 as a field medic which then transferred that deal over to the UEO when the UN was disbanded due to corruption, criminality and nobody trusting that broken system anymore. The man was solid, stable, phlegmatic and grandfatherly with everyone aboard under the age of 40. Noyce was still quite satisfied with posting the man aboard. The fact that the man had world-class pediatric qualifications and got along swimmingly with Lucas was exactly what Bill had been banking on. He also had what would be critical in the present conditions; experience with children survivors of war and terrorism.

"While I would normally accept your gracious hospitality, doctors, I just had a copious lunch with the ship's new captain and security head. I drank enough coffee that I changed color and probably look like a cheap fast-food cappuccino right now. So, no thank you, but don't hold back on my account." He answered urbanely, careful not to step on toes he should avoid.

The two medics were far from flustered, having seen the hour on the clock and understanding that no matter the gravity of the patient's predicaments, the rest of the ship must be kept functional if med-bay was to be fully supported in turn. After serving themselves some piping hot tea and pulling out a tin of butter cookies, the medics started with the easy cases; the shock and emotional breakdowns.

Levine began the reviews: "We have around thirty cases of shock induced emotional breakdowns. All have been assigned to light duties except three that we are keeping under sedation right now because they are burned out physically and have no reserves to help their mental recovery. The cases are Lt Miguel Ortiz, Ensign Mike Carlson and Crewman 2nd Carol Durnan. The particulars of each case vary greatly but the worse is Ortiz as he was on the Bridge for the blow-out and then had to work through the mess in the launch bay after finding Ben Krieg to tell him about Lucas's condition. He is completely physically and morally depleted. We recommend light duties for two weeks and mandatory weekly counseling sessions for the next 12 weeks."

Levine took a sip of his tea and a deep breath to steel himself for the next file. "The case of Lt Krieg is a basket of crabs in a league apart. He is functioning on fumes and close to mental collapse. He blames himself for not being on the bridge to defend Lucas when the fight happened. Captain Bridger had apparently told him that since he was a 'junior' ranked lieutenant that he did not have his place at the video conference you ordered. According to Bridger, even his position as quartermaster and member of the ship's council did not give him a place in the meeting. Seeing no alternative but to file a grievance and hope you would redress the situation when you saw his absence, he obeyed. He was down in the engineering bunkers, leading an inventory of parts and tools that had been botched last week. The reasons for that are nebulous. Be that as it may, Krieg is now emotionally compromised and mentally on the lip of a precipice. I recommend immediate medical leave and 12 to 24 weeks of psychological follow-ups, with weekly sessions being the minimal term."

Saritsatva continued with the actual injuries: "There are about a dozen people that were roughed up during Bridger's mad dash to escape the SeaQuest. Mostly bad bruises and nasty bumps on the head. It seems they were content with knocking unconscious the men they came across but killed four because they resisted or tried to take up arms against the rebels. All these persons have been sent to their posts with an order to keep a weary eye on their own morale and health, to report immediately to med-bay if they start feeling symptoms, especially those of concussions, shock and burn-out."

Levine took up the pole while Meetha sipped her tea and rearranged the papers on the desk to show the appropriate charts while he spoke to Noyce. "Now admiral, our medics have treated Marcus Shan and Katherine Hitchcock as well as any ship of this size and caliber can provide. The bullets were lodged in soft tissues, had not penetrated anything too vital and the contamination from bowel contents to the rest of the body was negligible due to the fast interventions. They have both been assigned time to recover in our rooms and then two weeks of full rest followed by two weeks of light duties. They do have antibiotics for the whole month, along with pain management drugs and Gravol caplets at will to manage the side-effects from the harsher medications. They are both on the watch list for shock and moral burn-out given they were at point blank when the betrayals happened. The emotional impact of seeing Lucas attacked and damaged right in front of them, just before they themselves were victimized cannot be underestimated. They will need time for physical recovery but also emotional and psychological follow-ups similar to Lt. Krieg."

Meetha pursed her lips in distaste at the next case file. "Lt Crocker is officially listed in terminal condition. He has infarcted twice on the table during surgery, another episode once in ICU-2 and has caught an aggressive infection from the grime on the bullets Nathan Bridger used. We estimate he has between 12 and 18 hours left. He slipped into a coma about an hour ago and we do not have any hope for his waking before the end. We understand he was an old friend from the academy, some forty years ago. Please receive our sympathies, admiral. It is never easy to lose someone in such circumstances, especially when they had lost themselves already so many years ago."

Doctor Levine gave Noyce a single deep nod and expressed in low tones "May he be remembered amongst the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem; we grieve his passing with thee, admiral. He tried, in the end, to help reestablish Law and Morality aboard, to curtail Bridger's worst excesses. Alas, he was not sufficient to the task; none of us would ever have been. As such, his efforts were valiant and mayhaps the only being that kept Bridger from becoming truly violent and dangerous towards us all."

William folded his hands over his rotund belly and squared his still impressive shoulders, assuming an air of dignified detachment from the situation. "I thank you for your kind wishes, doctors, but I knew from the start that Manilow would not make it. He has nothing left in life and a lessened existence as he would have to endure would not appeal to him. Better he pass from this world at peace, never knowing how reduced he had become. His relatives, such as they are, will be informed but I do not expect any type of reactions, public or private."

Meetha placed her tea cup on the saucer with a discrete chinking sound as Joseph cleared the desk to give the entire space over to the file and charts for Lucas. The teenager's prognostic was grave but cautiously optimistic. Meetha gave the review. "This is the hardest and most complex of the cases we have from the incidents of the last few weeks." The female physician gave a low sigh. "He had his left clavicle dislocated and broken which was easily set and we put in metal pins to hold it during treatments. His ribs were aggravated by the new assault and other ribs were damaged. As a result we had to put permanent metal pins and calcium aggregate in seven different ribs to repair and solidify them. The implants will not impede his growth nor is there any necessity to remove them during his life. His diaphragm had to be intubated to provide relief from the swelling and accumulation of liquids in response to the multiple heavy traumatism. The stomach was impacted very badly, to the point of causing several lesions and deep tissue bruising that required surgery to rectify or he would have died in a few hours. He has severely bruised large and small intestines that are swollen but not dangerously so, therefore we did not intervene in that region as anti-inflammatories we give for other conditions will also reduce that particular affliction."

Doctor Levine took over for the worse part. "He was hit repeatedly in the head, directly in the face. It resulted in several deep, large cracks in the facial bones around the left side of his skull. The left cheek is broken. The nose was broken and flattened towards the right of his face thus impeding breathing for a period, but it is mostly a cosmetic issue now. There was damage to the jawbone which broke and had to be stabilized by pins and calcium aggregate. Several teeth were damaged, ranging from chipped to fully cracked and he will need extensive dentistry work to repair properly. The left eye socket's upper and outer sides are cracked badly. The ocular globe was damaged, the cornea detached by 83% and was scratched. We estimate your specialists will be able to reattach it but the actual surface abrasions could mean visual impairments of sorts, for some period of time, before treatment options become viable. As he is still not finished growing into his adult physicality, most opticians will balk at committing repairs that could deform and become defective as the child's body ages and changes. Our most conservative evaluations are that he has lost around 40% of capacities in the left eye once the cornea is re-positioned and repaired."

William Noyce stood from his chair, adjusting his crisp beige UEO uniform and spoke softly but firmly to the medics. "Make every effort you can towards Lucas. The others are important, yes, but not as much as the teenager. The specialists that are coming in will be spread around to handle the supplementary load brought on by the amount of Marines and SeaBees we have aboard to rectify the ship's situation. Except for the optician whose coming just for Lucas, the other medics will be directed to follow the triage rules and postings you affect them for the near future. I order you to concentrate your own personal time and efforts to Lucas himself, above all others including me if I have problems and need hospitalization. Is this clear?"

The two doctors exchanged a meaningful glance but nodded at the old officer. "Yes admiral. Your will is clear and shall be carried out." Levine confirmed.

Grumping lowly beneath his breath, Bill turned around and left the room to make for his stateroom. His energy was too low to keep on going anymore. He would take a few hours of sleep and then have dinner with the ship's executives in the officers' mess. He prayed that nothing would happen until then.

 **Improvised meetings**

 _(SeaQuest – season 1 opening theme)_

 **Wednesday, 19 February 2020; 18:00pm**

 **UEO Flagship SeaQuest DVS 6000; Infirmary & corridors**

 **Australia, northern coast, Darwin City harbor – UEO military sector**

Timothy O'Neil felt like an old man three times his age. He was 33 years old, for pity's sake, and he was walking with a cane while leaning on furniture with the other hand! When he found that bastard Ford, he was going to rearrange the man's innards with a rusted, bent grapefruit spoon that has the little teeth all around it! At least he was mobile and not in danger of losing his mental faculties to the point death would be better like Lucas was suffering. It was a merciful thing that the poor kid was insensate with that many drugs flowing through his veins.

Humph! Knowing how Meetha felt about the brat, she probably gave him the good stuff too! Tim couldn't hold back the low chuckle that escaped at the thought of just how high the teen would be flying when he woke up. He knew for a fact just how reticent to take meds and anything psychoactive Lucas was. His mind and his sense of self were his only real possessions of any value that he owned fully and he loathed viscerally anything that took from him his capacity to control his own body and mind. An emotion that the lieutenant was able to empathize with wholly right about now.

Tim made his way to the infirmary's convalescence room #4 and walked in through the door, seeing as it was open already. Miguel was sitting on the side of the bed, his uniform shirt and t-shirt on the nightstand besides him, with a few wireless sensors stuck to his chest and left arm to measure vitals. An unknown medic from the G.H.W. Bush carrier group was busy writing down the stats and speaking with his friend in a low tone. Migs did not look like a happy little sailor at the moment. Well, Tim would be by his side with a helping shoulder to lean on and a friendly playful smack upside his thick head when he needed that too. What were friends for, hmm?

Walking up to the young cuban, O'Neil noticed just how stricken the other sailor was. He was a lot paler than his usual sun-kissed shade of light bronze. His short hair was messy and completely all over the place like a ruffled chicken. The poor guy's eyes looked lost and haunted; their color actually less vibrant than the normal lively forest green he knew so well.

 _(Two Steps From Hell – Never Back Down)_

The communications chief realized just how deep the injury ran; Ford had been like a mentor to Miguel in the last two years. For all the period she was in drydock and then at sea for her trial run, Jonathan had kept a close proximity with Ortiz but not in a crushing or distrustful way. It was just that this particular boat needed much more than the regular radar and sonar other subs used and this created a necessary closeness between whomever held command of the boat and the sensor chief. This translated to every shift too, as each officer holding the conn would invariably need constant input from his sensor operator. Add to that the constant manipulations and maneuvering of the WSKRS around the boat, even as tactical decoys or package ferrying devices towards other ships had been both a hardship and an incredible learning experience for Migs. He had managed time and again to impress all the officers with his dedication, expertise and creativity in the use of his primary tools. He had done things with the small satellites that nobody at Fleet Assets ever thought of when they were designed.

That's probably the only reason Miguel wasn't dead now; because both Bridger and Ford had some sort of basic care for Ortiz they didn't feel for anybody else. Timothy had gone to the academy in Robert Bridger's class along Ford, Ortiz, Hitchcock, Krieg and Shan. They had all gone to different career paths very rapidly though. Ben had been driven and career oriented but left the service after a few years following a catastrophically failed marriage to Kathy then went into the import/export business with some moderate success. Katherine had initially been interested in Robert very strongly but it wasn't returned so she married Benjamin on the rebound. She then divorced Ben in a bad way barely a year later because she finally realized she was pretty much obsessed by her navy career for the moment, to the point of excluding anything that asked for attention or energy. Shan, Ortiz and himself were happy toiling away diligently in silence; single but not alone or isolated, still close friends despite serving on different ships for a few years. Ford was closer to Robert for a few years since they served on the same cruiser for two years before Rob was sent to the 'Lake Erie' whilst Johnathan got sent to the SeaQuest where he stayed since. That had been a weird choice since Rob actually knew the boat specs better given he had been present when Nathan Bridger had been deep in the throes of the creative process that gave her the iconic systems no other ship afloat boasted to date.

The group of academy friends got lucky when the SeaQuest rosters were filled for the construction management team during the drydock work. The ship would not require a lot of movement and the civilian scientists came aboard only in the second half of the second year of reconfiguration so she didn't ask a lot from the bridge crew while dry-parked, just surveillance. It gave all of them some much needed time to get used to the far more numerous and complex systems like the DSV protocols, WSKRS, hyper reality probe, aqua-tubes and many others. Being stuck in dock while the heavy work was done below decks was actually a good time for the old friends O'Neil, Ortiz and Shan to reconnect with Ford and Hitchcock. Krieg eventually rejoined the crew with the first batch of civilians and the old gang was complete for the first time in about seven years, since Robert died and they had all attended the funeral.

Timothy closed his eyes tightly, head bowed in reminiscence, old faces slowly passing before the eyes of his soul, like figures on a carrousel. Robert and Miguel had been tight; he was his second best friend after Benjamin, even before Jonathan, and they both called Rob when they were too drunk or depressed to go home alone. When Ben divorced Kathy, Rob helped her while Migs helped Ben and then they switched to make certain both friends understood nobody was choosing between them. Ford was on the sidelines, watching but not daring to make a move. When Kathy said she would concentrate on her career to try and advance in rank or position, he let it go and moved on, or so it seemed.

Tim could see how Ford would attack Lucas so viciously; he always hated / loathed the teenager's mental capacities and felt threatened by his incredibly stable, reliable character as a human being. The fact that he was less popular than the teen also rubbed him wrong. You needed personality and character for that, what did it say about him that a child was better liked and received more respect than he, the ship's Ex-O? On top of that, Kathy spent a goodly amount of time with him due to her being his immediate supervisor. With two departments put squarely on his shoulders but no subordinates to delegate work to, Lucas needed help from somewhere. Kathy felt she should be the one to give that help since she was his boss. Bridger saw that and made it worse for both of them any way he could.

No, Timothy didn't see any illogical situations in why Ford attacked Lucas and then himself when he tried to jump around his console to put himself between the kid and his adult attacker. Jonathan had been crushing on Kathy hard all over again since the first year in drydock so sparing her was normal. Ortiz had been out of the way and hard to reach, both normal plus the emotional attachment on top. Crocker sided against his captain and old academy buddy, a personal betrayal similar to Shan's, so Tim could see how Ford would react to that and attack them all in one group as they blocked his way to Lucas.

Still, while the hits on his head were painful, the emotional betrayal of somebody he thought he was still friends with after knowing him for fifteen years stuck in his craw and he would have payment for that backstabbing. For what? Because he pined after a woman who didn't even give him the time of day in a decade? For old dreams that never had a chance in the beginning? He turned on all his friends like a rabid dog, if they had a friendship at all. He wasn't sure anymore. And then selling out to the russians... Ford was due a date with a firing squad if O'Neil had anything to do about it.

"Hey, man, you okay?" Miguel asked gently from his place, now standing near the bed instead of sitting on it. The doctor had been silent a while but O'Neil hadn't realized any of it.

Tim startled very badly and opened his eyes locking on to the source of the sound with such an expression of fury on his features that both the young cuban and medic backed away in self-protection reflex. Tim took a calming breath, slowly exhaling it while bringing the solid steel cane back to the deck with a dull thud as the rubberized end-cap connected to the metal plating. The lieutenant looked at his right arm and cane, wondering how and when he had raised it like that, as if he was about to bludgeon somebody.

Blinking in weariness, he gave a shy, wan smile that was much more himself and said shamelessly "I haven't slept nearly enough and the pain drugs don't seem to have any effects anymore. Honestly, I have a concussion, I wasn't decapitated or brained with a pickaxe. They could let me sleep a bit more so I could recover better without feeling the pain and nausea. Or having to attend this _supper of fools_ that Noyce is gathering. What a waste of time and efforts at this point. Half our people are down and the best one isn't even guaranteed to wake up the same as before. Fuck the brass and their need to shake their balls in our faces; it won't solve anything anymore. We're well passed the time for symbols and public image managing; we need something real to heal our community."

Ortiz glanced hard at the last man he knew as stable and reliable besides Lucas and understood how close to breaking he was. He also saw how much stronger and resilient the introverted, shy Timothy was and that he would come out from this a better man and more tenacious officer than anybody else. The inner fire that Miguel could see burning in his friend's eyes told him that many things happened during his trip down _Valium Avenue_ and they would have a long talk about it with his good Tequila and some extra cheesy nachos Tim ate like Lucas drank coffee. They would make it through, those of them left, and they would work to make certain the sacrifices were not in vain. Miguel himself intended that those who hurt and destroyed such a kind, amiable and helpful young guy in front of his eyes not be allowed to escape justice for any length of time. Payment was called due and God would send His tax collector soon.

The doctor stood silently, witnessing something he had seen very few times before in his thirty years of service. Two servicemen friends attuning and communicating with eyes and micro-expressions what needed done to survive and then agreeing to doing the dirty jobs so the others would survive too. O'Neil tapped his cane on the floor twice, then placed both hands on the pommel in a very dignified manner, like an older gentleman, the finger with his Naval Academy ring tapping an unconscious rhythm on the wooden pistol-style handle as he spoke.

"The SeaQuest thanks you for the services you have rendered to her people, doctor. Miguel and I can see to ourselves from here on out. Good day. Migs, get dressed! The new chief of security might be your type but I bet she has better standards than you bare-chested flirting with her at an official dinner right under Noyce's nose."

On that, Tim turned on his heels and began the slow, laborious walk towards the officer's mess which today was quite appropriately named as they would be wading through an open air cesspool if ever there was one. And since he had grown up in cow-ranching country in Michigan, he knew a rain-soaked runny heap of manure and compost when he saw one. ' _Ain't no life like Navy life_ ' they said at the recruitment office. Bah! Maybe he could sue them for false representations?

Miguel scratched his head in stupor for a second and then shrugged. He had been right; Tim would bounce back faster and harder than the rest of them and pull them through behind him. It would just be a lot less pretty than he had hoped and he bet it wouldn't be painless either. Quickly pulling his t-shirt over his head, he sprinted to catch up to the surprisingly spry invalid ahead of him and then walked at his side as he pulled on the button-down shirt of his regular day uniform to complete a supposedly presentable officer. That was if you ignored the rumpled mess of his clothes, his even messier hair and the indubitable bleary set to his face that complemented the dead look in his eyes so well.

"So bro, what's for dinner?" Miguel asked gamely, trying to offset the flat mood.

"You have a choice of Canadian, Russian or American True South; pick your poison."

Ortiz was making a weird face when they turned at a corner and came face to face with a young man about their age with a blue UEO navy uniform that had rectangular patches bearing the Canadian flag on each shoulder and right under his name tag on the right breast of his shirt. Said name tag proclaimed him as 'Eugene Darby, captain, Canada coast guard' and Miguel had a feel in his gut that he was looking at the new boss. He was young, damn it! Was he even forty? Not that Ortiz was an ageist, not after working with Lucas a little bit. You lost that bigotry quickly when by his side for a while or you were really gone in the head like Ford and Westphalen. Still... The guy was young. Good looking in a rugged kind of way, too. White skin lightly tanned by months in the open air, short brown hair, clean shaven with clear grey eyes that looked at you hard and unyielding like the sea he was born to. Maybe, just maybe, they had gotten a lucky break for a change.

O'Neil inclined his head slowly and only a little to not aggravate his concussion. "Captain Darby. Welcome aboard, sir. I see you're looking for the mess the admiral is making? It's this way." Then he kept on walking, leaving the two other sailors to decide what they would do.

Miguel was caught flatfooted but recovered enough to give a wan smile and offer a formal salute while presenting himself. "Senior lieutenant Miguel Santos Ortiz, chief of sensor operations. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir."

Darby gave him an amused look and spoke in the accented english from his native Newfoundland. "Good to see you back among us, lieutenant. Is your other half always this cheery after a concussion? He seemed a mite peaky there..." The man's playful poke at Tim's attitude deflated the bubble of worry in Miguel's gut. Most superior officers would have been offended at the other sailor's comportment and demanded answers or even reprimanded him formally. It seemed the new captain liked people with a certain fortitude to them and wasn't afraid of abrasive tempers when under pressure.

"Well, it's the first time I see him with a head injury, so I don't rightly know. We'll give him a few days and see if some TLC from the nurses in the infirmary might not help him along." Migs answered hoping he was reading the man's mindset right, otherwise there could be trouble.

The new CO chuckled and replied gamely as they walked towards the officer's mess. "Ain't that the truth about any poor bloke stuck in the back like you guys were? A bit of TLC or a stiff drink, either way, we all have to find a way to cope and move on. Only dead things lie immobile waiting for change to happen. We live ones have to make do and adapt; the alternatives aren't pretty or that many."

Ortiz nodded and grumped something in response, amusing the CO again.

They came to the door of the officer's mess just in time to see Timothy stop in front of a six-foot, two inch tall slavic beauty of legendary dispositions; US Marines colonel Lyra Dirnova, their new chief of security operations. Miguel couldn't help the small smile of appreciation from appearing on his lips as he contemplated just how well the beige BDU's and body armor fit her. Dang! They lucked out in the physique department; she looked like an olympic athlete for the wrestling and martial arts teams.

' _Wonder what she's like as an officer and a person? Guess we'll see fast enough._ ' Migs thought silently.

The tall, very generously and very well proportioned woman had skin as white as porcelain, hair blond like spun gold and eyes bluer than summer seas at rest. Her appearance though did not impress Senior Lieutenant Timothy O'Neil; he read her bio and the result from the data mining softwares that Lucas had developed specifically for their needs to have classified materials organized and prioritized right on the first print-out. She was good, he gave her that or she wouldn't be walking freely around his boat with hard steel and a badge. Her grand-parents migrated to the USA to escape the rise of communism but wound up in Nazi Germany so they had to flee that place after just two years. They went to France, then England and then finished in the USA in South Carolina, in a fishing village on the East Coast.

She had served in the Marines since she was 18 years old, barely old enough to sign up without a parental approval form, and that was after five years in a military academy that she had willingly joined. She had never been a problem child, but she liked order and the services were in the blood as both sets of grand-parents, both parents and her two brothers were all under the flag in some capacity as army rangers, marines, navy or civilian police. She got up the ladder by strength of her arms, a hard head and never compromising the values and dignity of the corps unlike some who worked around Washington DC and the _Pentawhores_ too long.

He could respect her character. He could respect her rank as a full colonel achieved at the very young age of 29 years old. He could respect her impeccable service record and bright future in the corps. He would not however back down from her and yield on anything he disagreed with. He would not let her pass in front of him because she thought she could look down on him for being among the walking injured when he should have died to protect his charges better. He would most certainly not in this life or the next allow somebody to look down on him and try to elbow their way past him with an attitude that was a mixture of Ford's arrogance and Westphalen's god-complex salted with ' _Maverick of the seas_ ' for kicks. The blond valkyrie was going to get an earful and see what the invalid could do, even without the big chair under his ass!

Keeping his tone of voice low and civil, though frigidly so, Timothy addressed the woman with a choice of expressions to make even the much vaunted Kristen Westphalen grind her teeth in worry. "Tell me colonel, is the protocol in the corps so different from the navy that you don't salute a superior officer when you meet one? Also, you do remember, don't you, that the same protocol stipulates quite clearly that officers always enter the meeting room in order of the highest to the lowest? Good. I wasn't certain if wearing that metal bucket on your head all week had done worse damage to you than I was recovering from right now. Now tell me, in simple words, please, as I have a concussion and I am a bit nauseous, who between the ship's acting Ex-O and the chief of security comes highest in the chain of command? And what are the protocols when the two meet in a corridor? I am waiting, colonel. And I can wait while you have your dinner in the brig to mull it over, if you want. It is, after all, not a very important point to debate. Especially since there is no debate to be had."

The look he was giving the 36 year old woman made Ortiz wish he could melt into the floor grates while the captain just crossed his arms and leaned against the bulkhead with a wide smirk. The marine was glaring at O'Neil as if he were cow pie back on the home ranch but he seemed about as impressed by that as aforementioned excretion would be if it were here in his place.

Dirnova produced a tight, shallow smile: "Good. You learned the lesson the first time around. It's good to know you won't let a criminal or a traitor run around your boat trying to bullshit everybody and give stupid orders. It's also good to see that you're finally willing to fight for your position in the chain and kick the asses of those who want to steal your position or piss a line around you like dogs in heat. Now, let's give it a couple of weeks and see if it was the pills talking or the man inside the uniform. Then, you and I will sit and drink and come to an understanding of who does what. Sir." she finished with a wide shit-eating grin.

Timothy didn't seem to find the humor of the situation while his new captain laughed out loud and Miguel clapped him on the back encouragingly. "Later man, I'll explain it later." Migs told him with a wide smile of his own as he pushed his friend of 15 years into the enclosed officers' mess hall followed by the other two.

 **A Supper of Fools**

 _(SeaQuest – season 1 opening them)_

 **Wednesday, 19 February 2020; 18:24pm**

 **UEO Flagship SeaQuest DVS 6000; Officers' mess**

 **Australia, northern coast, Darwin City harbor – UEO military sector**

Tim entered the officers' mess without ardor or interest. He really needed to go back to sleep but now that the two chairs under the captain were in play, he had to at least put in an appearance, if just to keep the rabble below decks from getting ideas above their mental capacities. He fervently hoped Kathy came back to full health rapidly and took the Ex-O job as was her right by straight-line succession. That is, unless the fat tub of pig shit Noyce had something he was planning behind everybody's backs.

Who was he kidding, Tim asked himself sarcastically. Noyce was the director of US Naval Intelligence before he became the UEO Navy's Head of Fleet Assets; he always played behind the good people's backs, it was his nature. You don't have a 30 year long career in one of the intel agencies if you're a decent guy! And now they all had to live with whatever crapulence the lie peddler had brought aboard their home. Oh, joy!

"Welcome to our humble little getup, lieutenant." Noyce claimed amiably from his seat at the foot of the table. His bombastic false cheer made many want to spit bent rusted tacks at the fat fool.

Tim noted that the man had at least respected basic navy decency and let the table's head for the captain. Sighing deeply to garner some of his remaining patience, the comms chief took his temporary place in the first chair on the captain's left hand. Miguel followed and sat next to Tim's left, unwilling to separate from his friend after all the crap they lived. The sudden political uncertainties he saw in the ship's management team weren't helping him stabilize either. Darby took his place at the head of the table, Dirnova seating herself in the middle of the right side. There were several seats empty, waiting for their occupants to arrive for the 18:30pm supper. The unspoken elephant in the room was the one chair with a black sash across the backrest and a black handkerchief covering the tableware. Lucas. Even lying at death's door, he was present among them, making his gentle soul and deep thoughts a part of their lives.

The door opened again to admit Benjamin Krieg, doctor Levine and the elderly French civilian scientist doctor Lyssandre Dagoberte De La Sainte-Xulpérine who was slated as Kristen Westphalen's replacement as the head of the science department. All three people took their places silently. The door to the kitchen opened and a very young male crewman wearing a white waiter's apron over his uniform walked in, carrying a tray with pitchers of iced water and a bowl of lemon, lime and citrus slices. He set the pitchers and bowl on the table then passed out the menus for the evening meal's courses. Unlike the regular mess hall which was done buffet style all day long, the officer's mess could serve you à-la-carte when the occasion warranted.

And having the Boss-of-All-Bosses aboard counted as such, wouldn't you know... Snobby bastard...

"I do believe that's all the people we'll get tonight. You can start ordering." Noyce told the gathered members as if it were his boat and his right to order them. That skiff would not float for long...

He was made a liar just four seconds after that pronouncement when the door to the corridor opened revealing Hitchcock and Shan seated in wheelchairs with IV bags suspended on poles attached to the backrests of their conveyances. They were being pushed by a pair of orderlies who looked mighty uncomfortable at their tasks given the thunderous expressions on the Lt-commander's face and matching mulishness on Shan's own visage.

"Commander! Lieutenant! What are you doing out of my med-bay?!" Levine exploded, irate at the blatant display of militaristic idiocy in front of his eyes. Even the marines weren't usually this bad to deal with when injured and ordered bed rest from gunshot wounds.

"T's a flesh wound. Soft tissues, nothing worth bitching about! Sides, the chair does all the work. Now, Timmy, I like you a lot, but you're in my spot. Move. Now." Katherine answered jerkily as the drugs and far too short rest period had combined to create a frightfully nasty temperament. Marcus wasn't really any better but his strict asian upbringing by his parents wouldn't let him express it out loud like that in a room full of what his father would call ' _his betters_ '.

O'Neil signaled Ortiz to move leftwards a chair and they resettled while the waiter took away the two excess chairs. The newly arrived officers were wheeled into position and properly saluted the superiors present after a minute of gazing at them challengingly. There was a deficit of trust at this table that everybody was feeling acutely. It would take time to rectify the whole mess but they would get there. The two orderlies spoke softly, signifying they would be in the regular mess hall across from the kitchen. They just needed to ask the waiter or use their emergency beepers and they would both come.

Snorting like a large fretful hog, which he looked like to be honest, admiral Noyce asked in poisonous tones "Are we all here? Can we order yet? Some of us had to travel across the globe on empty stomachs, you know!" while completely setting aside the large lunch he had five hours before.

"Well that's good for you that you have a stomach and it still works! I'm sure Lucas could sympathize with your condition if he were mobile and, you know, awake and himself..." answered Kathy in the same poisonous tone. Ben looked at her from his position on Ortiz's left with an approving stare before turning a baleful gaze upon the most senior officer at the meal, informing him that his faux-pas wouldn't be forgiven anytime soon.

Dirnova looked at Hitchcock as if she were radioactive material about to explode whilst Darby smirked widely and leaned backwards into his chair's backrest to enjoy the show. The Americans always liked giving lessons about military power and dominance to everybody, especially their allies. It would be nice to see the truth of just how fucked-up things were first hand. God knew he'd heard enough stories in his time with the coast guard to know for a fact their much vaunted maritime superiority was three quarters of hype and bluster backed by land-based ICBM's which had also been put in a rather lackluster perspective in the last decade.

The french scientist raised her scrunched nose up in the air to impress on others just how above the petty squabbles she was, but instead confirmed her character as an arrogant snobby bitch to match Westphalen. No wonder they had been close friends since first working together 30 years ago. It was also Kristen that signed her references and insisted she come aboard, despite her advanced age and questionable usefulness to half the projects she was supposed to supervise and administrate.

The captain decided to defuse the prolonged useless staring contest between his new first mate ( _he decided to keep her for now; she had gumption and he respected that_ ) and the admiral by placing his order. He was mildly impressed by the woman's ability to hold Noyce's vitriolic glare with her own withering orbs while ordering without even looking at the menu. O'Neil ordered something with red meat but not greasy which given his meds and nausea was wise. Dirnova went with the steak plate as was her usual choice regardless of circumstances; marines need muscle mass and strength all the time, especially when traitors abound. Ortiz then ordered some fish, followed by Levine who took the same. The new lead scientist began a painfully long-winded discussion with the waiter about the wines they offered with each platter and finally chose something rather bland and unmemorable anyways. The woman acted as if the entire room was a stage and she was a venerable diva actress performing for them to bask in her luminary presence. What a waste of wrinkled old skin she was! Krieg ordered blindly like Kathy had done, followed by Shan who took something fish-based with some extra BBQ pork meat on the side. Noyce came last with a selection of three different meat brochettes served over rice and salad with a side of scalloped potatoes since they had some already for the main mess hall buffet.

The waiter went to place the orders and came back 10 minutes later to the beginnings of virtual trench warfare with a serving cart full of soup bowls and bread rolls. He carefully served each person while noting the tense atmosphere, clenched fists, pursed lips, half-lidded eyes and baleful glares that indicated the positions were already dug in and fortified. He just hoped he could retreat to the kitchen before the artillery started lobbing verbal shells in the neighbor's camp and made him collateral damage. There ain't no way that 3rd class crewmen were supposed to tango with brass like that! He wanted out while he could!

 _(Two Steps From Hell – Star Sky)_

To the interested observer, it could be told that the old french woman was the Maginot Line; long, wide, impressive but ultimately futile as the enemy knew all its tricks and limitations. Not to mention she was designed already obsolete when still on the drawing board and she pointed the wrong way just like the real thing had. There were already four people determined to see her off the ship before the week's end.

Old William Noyce was the Siegfried Line; ugly, raw, brutal but the most effective defensive entrenchment at the table. His defenses were as massive as the medals and badges on his chest while his weapons ranged from the Law to Black Ops in your back yard at night. He would be the nastiest customer to deal with tonight.

Darby was like the Canadian High North; unassuming, remote, frigid, wide open unprotected land. Just like a lobster trap: if you go in, you never came out alive, just like the icy canadian tundra. Passive resistance for the most effective deflective force. Nobody really wanted to waste the efforts to penetrate and occupy empty land filled with critters and cold wind. Figuring out the man's game plan would challenge even Noyce and his ally Dirnova all evening long. That poker face, now that was sport!

Hitchcock was like a battalion of SeaBees engineers; slow, ponderous but promising an efficient and imaginative penetration of Noyce's defenses if he kept putting out challenging glares the way he did. She was presently laying verbal mines about old academy friendships gone sour and drawing uncomfortable parallels between Him and Bridger with Her and Ford. She was being capably assisted by Krieg who served as a foil to orient the discourse so she could lay her word-traps devilishly right before the admiral could answer safely. Damn the woman was fast on the offensive despite the injuries and drugs! She needed an eye kept on her from now on to see if she couldn't get placed somewhere her social and oratory talents would be better used. And Krieg was no mental lightweight no matter was Ford and Bridger had said in the past as proved by capacity to trick Noyce a few times into taking bait that Kathy would then pull on to reel him into her traps.

O'Neil was silently spooning his soup to his mouth while making discrete sign language gestures to Miguel and Marcus that made him look like an Aegis Destroyer on the prowl for enemy ships to engage. He was also putting out false signals and disinformation in his messages to his friends, the pale, pasty crud! That was another who was vastly underused aboard this tub, unless Lucas was alive and active to employ him as back-up in his web-wide schemes.

Ortiz was making a show of facetiously buttering small pieces of his bread roll one at a time before eating them while responding to Tim and Marcus with his own gestures while also verbally putting out false echoes and reports like ECM from a CIA signals interception ship. He was good at it, too. Maybe he could be sent to a few state dinners from now on if he was that capable. Paired with O'Neil and Shan they could make a human intel gathering team of formidable efficiency the old admiral thought gleefully as he mentally revised the calendar of diplomatic events in the next few months.

Shan was alternating between putting out silent codes and verbally fencing with the etiquette and aplomb his father expected of his son. He used an affected semi-aristocratic behavior to obnubilate the senses and social radar of the old french biddy three seats to his left whilst also forcing Dirnova seated left just next to him to pay attention to him rather than across the table.

Dirnova was trying to follow all the actions and meanings over the theater of operations only to realize she had been partitioned quite effectively between Levine on her immediate left and Shan on the right while Ortiz seemed to coordinate them to leave O'Neil and Krieg free to assist the new Ex-O in blasting the admiral's verbal and procedural fortifications to smithereens. What clusterfuck had they rolled their troops into? This boat was a civil war in progress with IED's in their plates and irregulars tunneling under every square inch of the deck plates!

The poor crewman waiter walked back in, fearfully pushing his cart carrying the salad and cheeses course of the meal right in the middle of Hitchcock dropping a verbal MOAB on Noyce's well emplaced fallacies that were designed to protect his well structured hidden back-plays while O'Neil supported her with some nasty underhanded innuendoes that dropped heavily in the conversation like an air raid on unsuspecting civilians at night. Ben used his many short, cutting phrases to spray across the admiral's positions like a barrage of phalanx shells coming from a fast-attack corvette.

The admiral's answering shark-like grin was not friendly but matched by the SeaQuest's original officers in kind. His urbanely spoken retort spread across the arguments of Kathy, Tim and Ben like fire from a tank-mounted flame thrower, calmly cremating their pretensions to ash around them. Only for said ash to be poisonous and sully his own lands as the lures were revealed for what they were when Levine spontaneously interjected an inane aside in their debate. Hooo! They were running silent ops in his backyard! And nobody saw them coordinate either! Noyce was pleasantly intrigued at this by-play and decided the game was fun enough to pull out a few munitions he kept back just to get their reactions. Such intel was always priceless for the long term plans he had in the background of things.

The poor crewman had barely reached the safety of the doorjamb with his cart full of empty soup bowls when Marcus Shan tactically employed a short silence in the virtual war to ask a small innocuous question of colonel Dirnova about traitors and fugitive recovery in the Marine Corps that fizzed discretely in the air like a gas bomb over a hospital full of invalids given how toxically baited the comment was. The poor 20 year old really wanted a new job that wasn't in the navy or diplomacy when he spoke to the cook right after that. Damn! These people played ugly and dirty! There was stuff in there that a guy his young age shouldn't hear!

A half hour after the salads and cheeses, the poor unlucky crewman was rolling in the main courses on his cart, wishing it were an APC. With all the verbal flak flying around the table he really needed some protection for his virginal ears and soul! After switching out the bowls for the appropriate plates and common serving platters of condiments, he made for a quick getaway back to the safety of the kitchen, afraid he would hear something that would see him get a new posting and a pay grade increase that really wouldn't be worth the troubles that came with it.

The officers were mildly amused at the poor crewman's escape while doctor De La Sainte-Xulpérine, as the only civilian in the room, and rather removed from the ship's crew and officers anyways, was completely oblivious to the meaning of the boy's actions. This confirmed for everybody else that she had to go and fast. She just wasn't cut out for a posting this high in this particular ship's roster.

Noyce was cutting into his chicken stick delicately while thinking on a replacement from the active civilians aboard. Surely he had a minion available and competent... Darby cut into his pork cutlets methodically while thinking about proposing someone from off-ship he knew was reliable. Dirnova was slashing her steak with merciless strokes, eating at speed the same way she would clear an enemy building one room at a time. She idly wondered which crony Noyce would shove at them, guessing wisely she wouldn't be asked an opinion until the last moment, if at all. Hitchcock, O'Neil, Ortiz, Krieg, Shan and Levine all signaled each other discretely. They would eat and play the pretty pony game with Noyce and then go access the master list of ' _potential personnel_ ' that Lucas had compiled in case the ship suffered massive casualties. They would trust his selections, after updating their profiles and data mining them for fresh events, just like Lucas had told them to do to avoid last minute surprises.

The beleaguered waiter brought in the desserts on his cart, two large serving trays that he placed in the middle of the table along the thermal carafes of coffee and tea. He then made the obligatory offer of digestive liquors since this was a high level meeting. Given the admiral and the new captain were present, the protocol permitted opening the alcohol cabinet to serve up to three bottles for the rest of the evening. The poor boy really hoped nobody got drunk. He really hoped he didn't need to call security to contain rampaging brass or he'd never hear the end while he lived.

All the soldiers were silently amused when the waiter almost sighed in relief that none of them took any of the hard stuff. The old scientist had asked for a green cream of mint on rocks to go with her truffled white chocolate mousse but she was the only one to partake in the liquors. Everybody else had meds to take and they all wanted to keep a clear head in the current game going on around the table.

The 3rd class crewman had almost made it back safely to the kitchen with his cart when Levine started up the trench war again by offering glibly to contact some friends amongst the jewish population of Russia to ' _fix_ ' their traitor problem if they couldn't do it themselves. His bland, contemptuous smile he turned towards Noyce was matched by the admiral's bemused smirk as they exchanged a small duel of missile barrages during the intermission of everybody else fixing their drinks and plates to eat their sugary treats to their liking.

Ortiz's completely unexpected comment of "I have a few relatives in Cuba with training from the revolutionary guard. They were never loyal to Castro or his regime's doctrine, they just went into the service to survive. A lot of people do that in those countries. With their credentials, they could enter Russia on a ' _Party business trip_ ' cover like a bullet flying through the air and find our missing goons before the CIA even puts people in. Then, getting to them... Well, establishing local contacts takes time. Unless you don't mind paying the Bratva for a contract? In that case, they have the contacts already. And I know Lucas could access some slush funds if he were awake; he told me of some protection money set aside for just such events."

William Noyce's answering wide toothy smile was not reassuring and the poor waiter was almost crying for his mother to come get him out of this mess when the kitchen door closed behind him. The sailors in the mess were again amused by his antics whilst the old _frenchie_ was too busy drinking her liquor snobbishly with pursed lips and highly demonstrative mannerisms to realize that ' _the World as it was known_ ' was being rebuilt around her insensate ears. This simply confirmed she would not last long.

The meal finally wound down as doctor Levine decided to corral is patients back to med-bay and check up on Lucas before going to bed. He knew that Meetha would have checked in on him almost hourly in ICU #1 but he wanted to eyeball the situation himself. And he wanted to make certain his two runaways were back in their proper beds as well. It wouldn't look good for the end of his career if the final notes in his service jacket said he had lost people aboard the ship where he was supposed to keep them in convalescence because they wandered about and lost themselves. Idiot sailors! The tank crews in the Golan were never this bad!

The entire mess hall emptied out except for the captain and admiral, both nursing strong black coffees and now a small glass of high quality bourbon Kentucky whiskey. The two officers gazed at each other longly, silence stretching between them as they sipped their drinks and nibbled on some leftover dessert to dampen the effects of the alcohol. The other players might have folded for the night, but their Game was not finished yet.

 **Lucas resurgent**

 _(SeaQuest – season 1 opening them)_

 **Wednesday, 19 February 2020; 21:39pm**

 **UEO Flagship SeaQuest DVS 6000; Med-bay**

 **Australia, northern coast, Darwin City harbor – UEO military sector**

Joseph Levine grumped lowly in hebrew as he set up Marcus Shan back into his room while Meetha Saritsatva took care of Katherine Hitchcock in hers. Both sailors were now exhausted and running on fumes they didn't even have to use up. It was apparent just how tired and disconnected from reality Shan had become since rolling back into the room by the fact he was now answering questions in Korean without realizing that nobody in med-bay spoke the language. Thankfully the sensors told them what they needed and the doctor administered another dose of pain management drugs with a bolus of antibiotics via the IV lines before letting the young man fall asleep from all the day's mess.

Walking out of CR #2, he met Meetha as she was done with her patient and walked out of CR #1 at the same time. They both nodded and exchanged a few facial expressions of commiseration about the hard-headedness of sailors to confirm the status of each patient.

Then they went into ICU #2 to check on Crocker. It wasn't good; he had slipped further into his coma and his life-signs were slowing down even faster than before. He would not reach midnight. The two doctors warned the monitoring desk about Manilow's condition and prognostic, to simply process the body into the morgue if he did pass on before morning shift. There was no need to wake them for this as it was the only conclusion possible at this point. His brainwave activity and heart rate showed clearly that he would never wake up again.

As their last task of the evening they went into ICU #1, passed the pair of Marines on guard at the door of the room. The two soldiers nodded amiably at the doctors; they saw how Noyce spoke with and respected them so they knew they were straight on the job. That and Meetha looked like the Universe's grand-mother and Joseph had an infectious humor that made even the grizzled 40 year old veterans smile in answer when he spoke with them.

Both medics approached the sleeping child set up on the extra wide, extra strong multi-segmented bed capable of taking an adult man up to 800 pounds of weight and size. Poor Lucas looked lost and adrift in the huge mattress and wide white sheets. He actually looked whiter than the sheets and that wasn't good, even for his usual porcelain white complexion that made his friends tease him about being ' _Casper's cousin_ '. Silly americans and their cartoon references...

As the medics puttered around the bed and metal poles holding the IV bags, pumps and automated sensor controllers, an alarm began to beep softly. They both looked at the bed's headboard in complete disbelief: the boy was rousing from sleep! But how!? Rapidly, with practice borne of decades in traumatology and pediatric care, Levine began to check the wireless sensor pads attached to the teenager's thin wiry body while Meetha verified the actual readouts and control panels to make certain the machines were not disfunctional.

They got the only answer that mattered as the boy's one good eye opened and began to scan the room for humans and to recognize where he was. Seeing the two familiar faces and identifying some numeric marks on the ceiling around the lamp fixture, he calmed immediately and swallowed, trying to whet his throat and force down the lump he felt.

Meetha placed a glass of chilled water with a straw in view of him and then placed the straw in his mouth to let him drink his fill. Having been hospitalized for critical care a few times before in his young life, Lucas knew to drink slowly and swallow between sips. He used his tongue to push out the straw when he had enough. Meetha placed the water back on the wheeled serving table while Joseph approached slowly to avoid scaring the patient into a panic attack. He did something that he knew from experience works well with young patients and especially with Lucas given his mind and expertise in the biological and medical sciences. He checked each IV line, drainage tube and sensor while explaining the position and function of each as well as commenting on the normality or abnormality of each reading.

Lucas calmed down as the data from Levine's prattle filled his drug addled mind and made certain key sectors of his psyche reboot enough to process the situation. He was hurt badly but not in danger of dying. He could be counted as handicapped for the rest of his life in the left eye and possibly the stomach and diaphragm if solutions weren't found. All those could be worked with if he lived long enough with enough mobility and mental presence to help the R & D. The basic prognostic was that he would live, so he stopped worrying about his health and refocused on the immediate threat.

"Call Noyce. Now." he mumbled urgently in low voice through his damaged mouth.

It took about a quarter hour for the Admiral, captain Darby and colonel Dirnova to be present by the teen's bedside. He was now slightly inclined to be able to see the people without straining his neck as it had been hit a few times during the altercation. As it was, any movement made tremendous pain shoot through the entirety of his head and the medics were rushing through the pharmaceuticals catalog to find something that would affect the sensations without knocking him out completely.

Once the three senior officers were assembled, Lucas used his right arm to type on a generic tablet that had been set up on a small adjustable metal pole affixed to the bed's railing. He selected an app and typed a long string of characters then hit the activation button. A series of weird sounds came from the speaker on the tablet, making the sailors and medics wince in displeasure but Lucas seemed to relax.

The teen closed the app and opened another. Once it was active, he opened the ship's network access and established an automated parity system with the master copy of the app he really wanted to use and created the connection he needed in under three minutes. Once that was done, he again relaxed visibly, more at ease, and typed lazily a few phrases before hitting the glowing yellow 'enter' button on the screen.

"Hello, admiral Noyce, captain, colonel. Welcome to SeaQuest. I wish I were in better disposition to receive you aboard. No matter; the ship and crew, such as they are, stand ready to serve."

The boy had stayed silent, his mouth and head immobile to spare himself as much pain as possible from the massive damages he had suffered. His words had come from the PAL-system speakers set in the walls and ceiling, carried by a computer imitation of his voice, strong and clear as if he were healthy. The sailors moved just a bit, exchanging looks to confirm their mutual understanding of the process and what it meant about the child's state of health that he was using this method to communicate.

The boy addressed the officers again. "Admiral, you should clear the room for the next part. I have classified subjects to discuss with you. At Level-14 and above."

Noyce pursed his lips in thought then turned to the medics, eyebrows raised in interrogation.

Levine spoke out as he was the one with the most extensive pediatrics qualifications in the pair. "He is partially immobilized from the shoulders down to his hips and the left arm in totality. His head can move but we recommend that it be the least possible as you can see the external metallic splints affixed to the jawbone fragments and the skull to keep them in place for further surgeries in the coming weeks. You should all move to be in the field of vision of his right eye to not make him displace his head during the conversation."

Meetha continued for him as his attention was grabbed by something in the medical catalog. "Besides that, he his fully intubated in the throat by tracheotomy to insure regular, strong airflow to the lungs. He has been intubated by catheters inserted directly into the bladder and bowels to facilitate excretions without exerting pressure on the already swollen, injured organs. This was deemed a safer method, despite being incredibly invasive, considering we thought he would be in a coma for two to four weeks while the surgeries happened. As it is, I would not recommend moving him even to use a bedpan, let alone moving to the washroom to use the actual toilet. The risks of vertigoes, nausea, double vision and problems with his eyes and ears resulting from the injuries are far too high to allow that much mobility yet."

Noyce's stone faced countenance didn't vary a bit as the medics unveiled how bad the situation was. That the kid was awake, conscious and aware were three miracles above their expectations at this point and Bill wondered what the Butcher's price would be for the meat he cut them.

Dirnova looked at the poor slim boy, just 16 years old, lying in the wide bed. With all the tubes emanating from his body, he looked like an old car mounted on blocks to be worked on as a Sunday morning project between father and sons like you would see in old movies from the 1970's and 80's. He was so pale that if the lights were turned off she didn't think she could differentiate him from the sheets or the paint of the walls. Half his head was caved in and shattered by repeated impacts that she wouldn't want to get even while wearing her field helmet. She didn't know the full extent of the damages but this guy could give her men lessons in never giving up the job.

Darby had seen his share of accidents and fight victims. He had served in the coast guard all his adult life and seen a lot of hum,an idiocy on the waves during his 20 years afloat. From simple fishing trawlers with engine troubles gone bad to drunken passengers that turn a cruise into a blood bath, he'd seen it all. And what he saw in the bed wasn't different from the rest so it didn't turn his stomach or make him sick. With one big exception: it was HIS man in that bed, fighting for his life and limbs. Lucas was his crew; he was part of the people that composed his new command and he was his responsibility. That meant that Darby cared for his welfare even if they didn't know each other yet and he would make certain the persons who did this would suffer for it.

The two medics were intelligent enough to leave the room without being told. They both knew that if Lucas was mortgaging his recovery to speak in confidentiality with them right away, then it was important for the whole planet. The two marines at the door actually saluted Lucas before nodding at the senior officers and closing the door to block out sounds then stood in front to bar the way. There wouldn't be any accidental entry due to 'distracted' deliveries or rushing nurses.

Noyce walked to the side of the bed and sat on the visitor's chair, a small, dingy plastic affair that was made more for the ease of washing it than comfort. His two subordinates stood behind him, with Darby closer to the bed and Dirnova left of him. All three made certain to be in the field of vision of the teen's functioning eye. The flint-blue orb slowly tracked their movements while his right hand was lazily typing on the tablet which he never looked at anymore. He knew the keyboard by heart, having created the app himself. Why bother looking at it?

Lucas's synthetic voice sounded out again: "Admiral; protocols for the passing of powers towards captain Darby and the new chain-of-command have been initiated. Bridger, Ford, Westphalen and all associates have been de-systemized. Their clearances are revoked, are being tracked and I have set the system to auto-dump all digitized documents and programs they used to the forensics servers of NCIS, CGIS, FBI, NSA, CIA and Secret Service for analysis. The nuclear stockade is secure but the warheads need recoding as they are all in _'emergency parking_ ' mode to keep either Bridger or Ford from launching them. I set that up the moment you asked for the emergency video conference. I had a gut feeling that things would go bad, especially with Ford having attacked me. A blind man could have seen it coming."

William pursed his lips in thought while Dirnova nodded at the boy to signify she approved of his precautions. Darby grunted and made a ' _gimme_ ' gesture with his hand. "Come on man, that wasn't Level-14 plus, you know it. Spit it out so we can clean the mess while you recover."

After receiving a nod from Noyce, Lucas swallowed passed his painful throat and began typing a long speech on the tablet. "Very well. If you trust them, then so be it. I have activated the ' _Damocles_ ' protocols to counteract Bridger selling any classified data or physical materials to the enemies of the UEO and NATO alliances. As we speak, the satellites are tracking him and calculating the best vectors to deploy the UEO's orbital laser weaponry to put an end to him. All you need to do is give me the order and I will end him and his mercenaries before they get a chance to speak of their secrets to anybody."

Taking the glass of water by himself, Lucas sipped some iced water through the straw to lessen the pain in his neck then put it back on the serving table. He typed another speech for the admiral. "In the event that you do not approve of the proposed course of action, I have already sent out to the entirety of all networks that I could reach and affect the facial patterns of Bridger and his cronies so we can track them real-time anywhere they walk, drive, sail or fly. Their identities are flagged as 'Black-Black-Terminate" to all servicemen and contractors presently on call to the UEO, NATO and US military service branches. All the bounty hunters that I could connect with, a little under 3,000 people, have received a certified formal offer at 5 million USD$ to bring down Bridger. Ford has 3 million USD$. The others vary between 50,000$ and 500,000$ each. All orders were emitted under CIA and Section 7 Blackheart safeguards for the duration of the retaliatory period of 3 months. After that, it goes into the usual channels and depends on what the heads of the UEO alliance members are ready to allow."

Lucas closed his good eye for a minute. It wasn't easy adjusting to a single eye as the depth perception was all wrong and having the left arm in tractions at the same time meant that his sense of balance and orientation were off as well. Weird, that, as it wasn't the arm or eye responsible for that. There must some damage or swelling in his left-side inner ear for his balance and equilibrium to be so impacted. Taking a deep breath, Lucas kept his eye closed but typed again on the tablet.

"I have been preparing these events since many weeks ago, when Bridger first sent you a message about wanting to use ' _manly disciplines_ ' and ' _christian pastoral medicines_ ' on me to make me more pliable. I could smell the stench of corruption and delirium around him. Then he went full-out nuts and asked for the permission to have specifically chosen ' _men of good faith_ ' hold me down and beat me into submissiveness to teach me to respect the Faith, the military and HIS command. At that point, when I saw that email go out, I knew he was gone in the head and started planning more actively."

Lucas hummed lowly for a few seconds as he ordered the thoughts inside his fuzzy head. "Ford had always been angry, mulish and verbally aggressive towards me but it was Bridger that empowered him to act on his rage. I can't say I'm surprised he attacked me repeatedly, his temped had always been one of bullying and violence; not just against me either. I have proof by films and written testimonials of at least five crewmen and two junior officers who were hit or abused physically by Ford in the months I was aboard. There must be more from before and you would find them if you investigate it."

The injured boy put his right hand at his neck for a second, in worry and then relaxed again. Blinking his good eye a few times to try and clear away the tears of pain and betrayal, he took a deep, angry breath and typed a new speech. "As you had ordered me when I came aboard admiral, I had set up multiple phantom servers to record all cybernetic activities going on. I then tagged for special attention several people that I could see were wavering in their faithfulness to the USA and it's allies. I auto-tracked everything of everybody; be they crew, officers, contractors or civilians like spouses and children that were calling their parent aboard. All activity through the ship's network or connex systems like cellphone towers and satellite phones were tracked aboard and even if they were off the ship. One contact meant an active tag, forever, anywhere on the mudball. Anything personal, official and supposedly classified work product and data transfers were recorded, parsed, decorticated, analyzed, data-mined and then concatenated into reports for all the intel agencies to sift through. I set the ship's systems, including PAL and comms linkups, to plant tracking spywares and retaliatory malwares into each and every piece of data, picture, music or program they were manipulating or copying. I can order these to ' **ping** ' me back with their location or send out an order to self destruct either alone or by spawning multiple virus that will destroy the system and sub-connections they are on. I can now wage cybernetic war on whomever they are in contact with and whomever will buy their data afterwards. So if the Russians take the data but sell it to the Chinese and Iranians, those would be virulated too."

Admiral Noyce grunted once as he stood his rotund bulk from the blasted uncomfortable chair and leaned against the bed's railing. "Sleep, Lucas. You did well. Every order I gave you, every protocol and safeguard, it was all well executed. But tomorrow brings its own load of trouble. So, for now, you sleep and let the doctors heal you as best they can. Tomorrow I will introduce you to some people who will be taking some stress off your back by being integrated to the permanent crew in both of your departments. You get two divers and two techs. Exactly the persons you had pointed out in fact."

Darby nodded and added his own part: "You sleep and take care of your own recovery. We can handle the ship while you heal. Besides, from what I saw, you won't stay down for long. If you could set this conference up with all the damages you have and still screw Bridger and Ford over from an ocean and a continent away, then you won't let illness slow you down. We will take you as you are when you're ready. In the meanwhile, I will be having a real, genuine officer's cabin prepared for you instead of that jumped-up junction box you lived in up to date. We do have a few staterooms with a bathroom and a view on the tubes; choosing one won't be a problem and then you can move in when you're feeling well enough. You'll also have the office on sea-deck that Westphalen lobbied to have you denied despite the fact she had no say in the matter."

Dirnova looked deeply into the one blue orb she could see and saw the depth of mental power hidden beneath the glaze of pain and medically induced fuzziness. This teenager would not be a burden nor was he just a political crony of Noyce's like she had seen a few times before. Although, even those were usually rather useful in their own ways. No; Lucas Wolenczak wasn't the average super-brain with little muscle or backbone who hid under his desk when trouble came calling. Her security department would be able to count on him when the mess hit the fan and she felt better for that knowledge. Her only comment was to salute the boy, like the door guard marines had done.

Lucas was now on the verge of all his physical and mental limits for some time to come. He closed his eye in pain and tiredness but raised his right arm to give the marine colonel her salute back. " _Semper Fideles_ , colonel. Keep my ship safe until I awaken. I will return." Lucas's own natural voice came roughly from his damaged throat. He spoke no more as he was now asleep, his shallow breaths and tremors in the left arm indicating just how drained he was at this point.

The three soldiers withdrew from the ICU room, now much better reassured about the felons at large and how quickly the situation could resolve itself. Time for some sleep of their own and then tomorrow, the new orders from the US President and UEO council could be made public, that way Lucas could hear them along the rest of the crew as he ate breakfast. Or swallowed the liquid swill they would straw-push into him, poor kid.


	3. Changing of the guard

The author wishes to express thanks to anyone who may read his story and encourages them to leave reviews, comments or even flame it hard. As with any who try their hand at publicly expressing an idea or story concept, all feedback is important and welcome.

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own SeaQuest, Star Wars, nor any other sci-fi or fantasy series, movies, comics, cartoons or news items used in this fiction as they belong to the creators or broadcasters or publishers who put them out for consumption by the public.

*** A message of thanks to " **00oo** " for following my stories and marking me as a favorite author.

*** A message of thanks to " **Mekh'Iis En'Ghae'rhon** " for following this story.

 **SeaQuest**

 **His Honor, Mister Mayor Lucas**

 **Chapter 3; Changing of the guard**

 **Captain on deck**

 _(SeaQuest – season 1 opening theme)_

 **Thursday, 20** **th** **February 2020; 08:00am**

 **UEO Flagship SeaQuest DVS 6000; Bridge**

 **Australia, northern coast, Darwin City harbor – UEO military sector**

Eugene Darby, brand new captain of the UEO flagship, made his way through the clamshell doors, past the four marines on guard and relieved the poor ensign who had conn all night after the day of internal war and bloodshed the ship's crew had suffered. The 24 year old junior officer was burnt out after being on edge all night as the carrier group G.H.W. Bush had pinged them on sonar and laser range-finders every hour on the hour. The unspoken reality of just how much hurt would rain down on them if they missed a call was poisoning the atmosphere as bad as if a dirty bomb had exploded in the vents.

The 38 year old canadian sailor wasn't afraid of the Bush or her escorts. Unlike many who had or would eventually sit in this chair, he had clean intentions and a stable, sane mind with no political ambitions whatsoever. That in his opinion meant he had nothing to feel towards the seamen of the carrier group but satisfaction in the presence of such steadfast allies to guard his flank while his people got their bearings and sea legs back in working order. The other thing that helped with ignoring the big ships above was that he had spent all his adult life in the canadian coast guard; not the biggest or most armed outfit on the waves. They were equal to the RCMP or the FBI in that they were federal police, not military.

As such, everybody in that particular branch of service in Canada and the USA too, rapidly got used to being outgunned and out shipped by everything painted fleet grey. It was just a fact of life at seas that the cops were not as armed or as big as the regular militarized Navy. What had set Eugene apart from his colleagues amongst the other captains of the CCG was that he didn't hide his scorn for the fact their ships were so poorly armed and defended that bloody 50 foot long _Swiftboat_ river patrol boats could take them on and win. Even against their capital ships coming in at 500 or 600 feet in length. It was a nonsense and Darby was never shy about saying it publicly. Some agreed with him, but always silently as wanting more or/and bigger guns and ( _gasp of anguish!_ ) missiles aboard CCG ships was seen as heresy against the doctrine of the ' **friendly, helping hand** ' of Canada at sea.

The Coast Guard admiralty had been gently and very discretely nudging him to realign his views with the publicly stated doctrine of the organization. The problem was that too many bureaucrats and elected officials spread across the provinces and Ottawa actually agreed with his position for the brass to take declarative action against him. Instead they ' _rewarded_ ' his 18 years of service with an _international promotion_ and shipped him to the UEO as part of Canada's human participation quota.

The new commanding officer sat in chair and wiggled a bit to fit himself nicely to the plush cushions before taking the written report of the night's activities. At least the thing was built solidly and comfortably like a captain's chair aught to be. He thought back to the brouhaha that had led to his being sent away from the CCG and into the clutches of Bill Noyce as Head of Fleet Assets. Not that he thought it disagreeable to be posted where he was. A bit more leeway in choosing his place would have been nice though; he would have preferred a smaller surface ship, well removed from all the diplomatic sucking-up. But, it seemed he had been ' _chosen from on high_ ' if some of the rumors that filtered around him at breakfast were true.

Lucas Wolenczak, pasty little albino cockroach that he was, had been data-mining and vetting Darby since he joined the UEO two years ago. The kid had been 14 years old at the time but already in a position to feed Noyce information and affect the placement of critical officers and resources across the entire UEO game-board. He had done that specific consulting job since he was 10 years old. Eugene did not know how to feel about that mental nuclear bomb.

On the one hand, the kid's record was a magistral example of what a young, honest, loyal patriot who served his home nation should look and feel like. His work ethos and attitude were splendid and his performances made captains around the American, Canadian and European militaries salivate in envy.

On the other hand, Lucas was an acknowledged High-Lord Grand-Master hacker; a supposed ' _white hat_ ' hacktivist who never hacked anything unless it was to help society or gather evidence for police to convince companies and private persons to stop acting in an immoral way. The kid had never used his hacking skills to extort money, rob banks or commit industrial espionage. That wasn't to say he never made a buck off his skills, on the contrary. The teenager had accomplished several very lucrative contracts for the World Bank and associated banking networks, investment brokerage firms and stock exchanges across the planet. His adaptive security programs were rumored to have tripled the security factor of the New York Stock Exchange transaction hub about three years ago. For a price tag estimated at some $20,000,000 USD. And that was peanuts compared to what the World Bank was rumored to have paid out for his services in tracking down money laundering schemes last year.

Which meant that his records had several dozen pages of severely redacted, blacked out informations about the contracts he had accomplished for the NSA, CIA, FBI, ICE, CG & CGIS, USNI, NCIS, and several more policing and security agencies tied to the DoS, DoJ, DoD, Pentagon and the Military-Industrial-Complex. Some of the stuff he was supposedly involved with could raise your hair, turn it white and make it fall out in raw unfettered fear in one go if you were ever cursed with the pay grade and security clearance to read the actual detailed list.

The runt had started his collaboration with the M-I-C at the precocious age of 5 years old. Not by accident. Willingly. With his eyes open and clear. Darby wanted to cry, curse and ultimately shoot the fat rat bastard who had allowed this travesty of humanity to happen. A child! A 5 year old child abandoned by his parents and society fell into the hands of the government and became this!

But he couldn't and he wouldn't, even if given the chance. For good or ill, the fact was that America was sick to its core and needed a dose of strong medicine applied right to its heart and soul at the same time. Darby's home country of Canada, unfortunately, was starting to exhibit many of the same symptoms its southern cousin had. And that was the blasted situation they had on hand. Lucas was altogether their hope of a better brighter future, the toxic yet life-saving chemotherapy they needed and at the same time the only medic competent enough to administer the damned suppository where it would do the most good.

Damn it to fucking hell but this was gonna hurt like a sunburn blister on an eyeball!

Carding a weary hand through his short brown hair, Darby wondered about the corruption in the UEO and NATO alliance executives. It took a pretty naive neophyte to think that replacing the old UN by the UEO had washed out and expurged the corrupt and criminal elements for good. Firstly, the member nations themselves had not really changed their military or diplomatic personnel affected to external collaboration. Then the NATO alliance had been completely unchanged, so its corruption and criminalities remained unchallenged, hidden from view as always. The UEO's inception had simply forced many old actors in the game to change their uniforms and rank badges but not their methods or ideologies. The new players didn't give a damn, they were either honest or corrupt and would stay that way, period.

And that was the where & when Lucas Wolenczak became vital for the police agencies and militaries of the Alliance. The boy had understood this even in infancy and worked to conceive a mathematical predictive model that was usable to determine who would favor the immoral or illegal decision rather than the loyal one given set parameters. In other words, it allowed you to **pre-profile actively** your soldiers, officers, agents and bureaucrats to see at which levels of bribery, threat against their family or government interventionism they would start to willingly detach from their allegiance and become ' _rogue_ ' or self-radicalize towards violence.

That scared the hell out of anybody aware of the project. With good reason. It put in direct immediate jeopardy the concept of ' **innocent until proven guilty** ' and replaced it by ' **we think you may, so we keep you away** ' thus allowing for cleaner, more efficient governance and institutions. At least that was the postulate behind all the profiling and predicting. It still felt like the ' _Big Brother_ ' phase just before everybody becomes a Borg drone with implants spiked a little everywhere in them...

Darby was certain that the usefulness of such a predictive profiling system could easily be justified against terrorists and foreign combatants that were already identified and being tracked. The capability to predict who they would contact, meet, recruit and plan attacks with was indispensable but it was not a miracle either. The whole program depended on the most unreliable and perfidious source of information in the universe to base it's math on: living beings. The fundamental truth was that live entities were not stable nor reliable for prolonged periods of time. The basic most important part of life was surviving to chaos and actively adapting to changes.

The second most basal problem with live entities was their inherent dishonesty. Some would lie by ignorance and not even know it. Some lie because it helps family, friends or the company they work in to keep their job. Others would lie to get an enemy in trouble by falsely accusing or exaggerating ordinary comportments to make them look suspicious. Children lie because adults told them to, because it helps friends with something or because they fear the reactions of adults who dislike hearing the truth when it differs from their beliefs or creed. Then you have the false confessions tortured out of innocent prisoners by felonious guards. The manufactured anonymous tips created by scandal-hungry media. The list doesn't end...

Lucas made a good, mathematically sound piece of cybernetic engineering, Darby would give him that. It could be helpful in a lot of settings like helping a clinic evaluate the risks of relapse in patients who undergo withdrawal and sobriety therapies. It can help track and foresee school problems in students that live in poor or dangerous families. There were good points about this system. But even Lucas himself set a full chapter of foreword, warnings and limitations about what it could not do and why.

Still, the system had been instrumental in choosing Darby, Dirnova and the other new crew members for their new assignments. They should be flattered for the trust they were given. Instead they both felt creeped out at the sheer volume of data the kid had mined through to get his prognostics about them. Privacy was not a right anymore, and not even a luxury for the rich either. It was the new sin, the new sedition; ' _why do you want to do that in secret?_ ' had suddenly become the new poisonous question asked by schools, employers, police, government... The USA is the ' _Leader of the Free World_ ' they said when he was a kid. Now, it was only true if you didn't actually want real freedom and never made the treasonous act of asking for yours to be respected. Free World indeed...

Captain Darby sat squarely in his chair, tablet in hand, wondering what his first full day as commanding officer would bring. " _Hope it wasn't like yesterday_." Lighting up the tablet he saw the first report and groaned; Lt. Manilow Crocker had died peacefully in his medically induced coma at 02:37am during sleep shift. " _Fuck. Noyce was gonna be a bitch all day_."

 **New cop on the beat**

 _(SeaQuest – season 1 opening theme)_

 **Thursday, 20** **th** **February 2020; 08:00am**

 **UEO Flagship SeaQuest DVS 6000; Security chief's office**

 **Australia, northern coast, Darwin City harbor – UEO military sector**

US Marines Corps colonel Lyra Dirnova was not amused. The 36 year old woman was in fact spitting rusted bent tacks. They only had around 85 full time sailors on the boat, with less than 20 being security specialists. They had compartments with four beds each for many more than this but the sacred cow of all governments (Tax Payer) didn't feel like sharing it's holy milk (money) with the UEO to the point of having the ship at full capacity. In point of fact, it wasn't just Wolenczak whose departments had been understaffed or completely shuttered out; it was half the ship in that situation. She was supposed to have an entire group of artificers to handle the nuclear ordinance but she had only two guys and they were split between doing full time maintenance in the fusion core with the occasional monthly look-see around the ICBM's and mark 10 torpedoes. They were a fully armed and enabled boomer but without the guys that make sure the missiles do their ' _booming_ ' elsewhere than parked in their silos. Crud!

She was supposed to have at least three full squads of marines to patrol the ship at all times so she could deploy one per shift. Given the 1,000 foot length and five storeys of the boat, it meant 12 guys on the beat and that really wasn't much at all. The reality before her eyes: she had one and a half squad for patrol duties, no more. Six guys per shift to patrol the whole tub on each shift. And forget patrolling the aqua-tubes or the maglev maintenance shaft! Those were simply watched remotely by cameras and sensors which would beep if there was a need. In other words, the guys supposed to watch those areas had not even watched anything; the monitors were never set on those channels as nothing happens there anyways! The idiotic lazy bums had trusted the computer system to warn them in case of a problem!

The bloody brig next to the armory was never manned unless a dimwit sailor was forced into it because he couldn't mind his manners or get to his shift sober. Thankfully, even with a limited amount of alcohol aboard available to the crew during meals, it was usually at shore leaves that the behavioral problems would happen and not out at sea. According to the logs, the few months of active service had not seen a single sailor in the brig but there were plenty of notes in the security logs put in by Bridger or Ford about Lucas Wolenczak and his supposed indocility and undisciplined attitude.

Dirnova could not believe her eyes when she read the digital logbook pages. How anybody in his right mind could ever think that these pieces of crap would float in front of the _Formal Civilian Contractor's Disciplinary Commission_ (FCCDC) let alone the _Court Martial of the UEO Forces_ was beyond her. It was to put it mildly, a compost heap of trash, broken vanities, swollen egos and patently false accusations that would never survive the first glance of a minimally honest investigator.

How in God's own Good Name was it the kid's fault if the bloody aqua-tubes didn't have signage placards in them? He didn't make that decision and couldn't change that protocol unless the ship's master or the admiralty told him. And even then; when exactly was he supposed to have the time and equipment to print and then install the bloody 300+ waterproof glowing signs they wanted in the pipes?

Or this little gem: Westphalen accusing the kid of being _'generally disrespectful, dis-gracious, ill-mannered, ill-bred and prone to acting out of his station as an under-aged minor of lesser stature with vitriolic aggressiveness against his betters in science, society and life_ ' as witnessed by Nathan Bridger and Jonathan Ford. On at least two dozen occasions. And they just copied the same text, accusations and supposed proof at each time. Do note that the young man's version of events was not noted in the reports as protocol dictates. Neither were any recordings of the cameras and microphones despite all acts reproached having occurred in the sea-deck, med-bay, science offices or – _snort!_ \- the bridge which all had several hundred surveillance systems active all day and night.

The three bastards had manufactured a generic accusation aimed directly at the teenager's reputation and social position by the way of profiling and exaggerating his youth and nothing else. They spewed poison and didn't bother to put in a single film or corroborating testimony other than their own. Right there, that disavowed the complaints as the LAW does not allow somebody to be both the accuser and the corroborator. Furthermore, since the accusations were written in the logs without the chief of security notarizing them or taking into custody all evidences and further witness identities, it made each pronouncement immoral, illegal and a cause for Court Martial against Bridger and his two minions.

No wonder the Brass in Washington DC hadn't wanted her to look too closely at the schedules, logs and evidence bins when she took over. It made everything a lot clearer to the eyes. Bridger, Ford and Westphalen had been entrenched in a vendetta against Lucas since each set foot aboard. Their little civil war had obviously been sponsored by some religious fanatic in DC who held some sort of public office in the DoJ or DoD to give them the cover they needed. No wonder Bridger had started asking for _'special powers for the use of manly christian disciplinings_ ' over Lucas to beat him into servile, silent compliance while his rebellion was in the planning stages.

Captain Bridger had genuinely thought he would be granted those illegal powers which would then be made semi-legal by the verbal glitter-dust of some officious little bastard back home. Ergo; they had a Jesus-freak in a hidey-hole who used his government job to apostolize christian crap all over this case to bury the fact they were essentially enslaving a child. A child who also, by the way, happened to be not only innocent but the whistleblower warning them Bridger and minions were going bonkers.

And that was the real reason all those fake complaints were made: as a diversionary tactic. Since they were in the digital version of the logs, not the paper one, they could be shown off-ship to anybody, like a sympathetic _faithful_ juvenile court judge, to justify Bridger's demand for exceptional powers and leeway over the boy. With a prefabricated presentation and a selected audience of dishonest accomplices, nobody would care about the missing evidence, lack of by-standing witnesses or the completely inexistent defense from the child targeted by the conspiracy. The fact that the child would most certainly not be allowed to have a lawyer at the audience, represent himself, or even send in a brief was a mere detail in the big picture of screwing the LAW and morality of the land.

Bunch of cowardly fuckshits, the lot of them. Bridger obviously wanted to have penultimate control of the boy's media access and social platform activities during the gearing-up segment of his little scheme. Everything in the logbooks was written to suggest that letting Lucas use media or phones unsupervised was an invitation to catastrophe. They had also wanted to sequester him in _'cleansing hallowed meditative solitude_ ' to remove immoral, ungodly and un-American influences from his life. Basically, they wanted him put in the brig or a locked stateroom, completely quarantined from the crew and world at large, his entire reality reduced to whatever Bridger said or showed. Like a guru in a cult. Like the blasted Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, The Family of Jesus, and hundreds of other sects that prayed on children for free slave labor and sexual exploitation.

Well, there wasn't any two ways about it. She had to compile all this lurid mess then show it to the admiral. Washington and New Cape Quest were his patch, not hers. There wan't no way she was gonna tango with 4-stars and 5-stars. No way! Her mamma did'na raise no bumpkin _idjiot_!

As for the state of the department and the ship's security; she would have to wait and see what the new budgets and crew affectation looked like. Nothing to do about that on her end but send up the report and pray.

There was a strong knock on the door of the office. Looking at the person through the view port, she smirked and ordered the man to come in. "Lieutenant Brody, welcome to your new assignment. I was just about to start an investigation into some unlawful activities by Bridger, Ford and Westphalen before they escaped. You take this batch and I will take this one. We have until lunch to make a crude estimate for presentation to the admiral. Oh, and how was your trip here? Uneventful, I hope?"

The 27 year old man shook his head at the colonel's abrupt manners but then shrugged it off in good humor. Bah! Jarheads; what can you do about 'em?

 **Techno-babble and stuffs**

 _(SeaQuest – season 1 opening theme)_

 **Thursday, 20** **th** **February 2020; 08:00am**

 **UEO Flagship SeaQuest DVS 6000; Computational Analysis Department**

 **Australia, northern coast, Darwin City harbor – UEO military sector**

 _Junior lieutenant_ Eleanor Henderson, _communications and signals specialist_. It had a nice ring to it, if she said so herself. The 24 year old woman looked around the small, desolate room and sighed in unhappiness at the state of things. Her new boss, communications chief Timothy O'Neil, was being promoted to second mate as soon as could be practical to accomplish. Which meant a few weeks at best as they now needed a new chief engineer since that was the job the old 2nd officer had held along her bridge job. It seemed everyone on the bridge crew's permanent rotation cumulated two or three jobs systematically. Man! How did they do it?

And now, the young woman was in the dumps, trying to make sense of the mess she had walked in. NOBODY had ever held the post of Chief Computer Analyst before now. Or rather, the guy who held the title, one Lucas 'whiz kid' Wolenczak had been given the title, job and responsibilities but never the access or tools to do the job right. Like the office. Lonny had actually surprised the captain and admiral this morning when she ran into them at breakfast. She had looked up the ship's roster last evening to see where she would be affected until the switch-over on the Bridge was permanent. According to her assignment forms, she was to report to the Computational Analysis Office for briefing and pre-posting training for about two weeks before her first bridge shift as the ship's new chief of comms. An incredible promotion and career advancement at her young age.

Except neither Darby nor Noyce had seen a CA office anywhere in the manifests, rosters or blueprints of the ship. They had to ask Ben Krieg, the quartermaster about the room to find out if it existed. It did but had never been used since Ford didn't want to allow Lucas any privilege of function, position or rank while he could avoid it. The situation became endemic when first Westphalen arrived aboard and threw a wobbly about immature children having an office when her prize pupil, some young 22 year-old doctorate student she brought with her like a camp follower, didn't have one. The fact Lucas held two departments and several projects on the side didn't make the woman any easier to reason with. She had lodged a formal petition with the FCCDC based on nothing but ageist bigotry, jealousy and spite. The room was therefore sealed until the committee rendered a decision.

This was then sidelined by Bridger confirming that Lucas could use the 'shitpit' as a workspace just like most senior officers used their cabins as offices. He even tried to strong-arm the FCCDC into writing a formal letter of agreement to this effect when they showed signs they were in fact siding with the teenager. When he heard that, he called somebody in Washington who exerted influence and had the debate thrown back into an appeals process reputed to take at least two years even for the easiest and most menial items. The only use the room had was as a dumping bin where Bridger and his accomplices threw those electronic parts, program discs and paper documents about the CME or CCA jobs, position, department management or new regulations that they didn't want Lucas to have access to.

Keeping the young man in the dark about the changes and codes he was supposed to follow was a rather basic and transparent tactic to make him look incompetent and irresponsible so as to destroy his reputation in case of an investigation. It held, for about three weeks, and then it was the senior officers who were under fire for not helping the teen adjust to the necessities of his many jobs in a military context. Boy that must have made Bridger and Ford cringe in fury when their little misdirection backfired in their faces like that!

A knock on the open door had Lonny turn around and face the two new comers. It was the other newcomers to the ship's permanent crew: yeoman Myrna Themis, cybernetics engineer, and ensign Lisbeth Ohnohura, a servers & networking technician. Both young women had been dragged to court martial by the JAG for diverse offenses that had either been thrown out by subsequent investigations or had been so greatly reduced as to not even warrant a suspension. In either case, Lonny would have some interesting partners to work with, even though they would nominally be subordinate to Wolenczak in the Computational Analysis Department's roster.

"Hey girls! Welcome to the second pit of Hell. The first one is where the Boss lives right now and we get to empty that out too! After this one. Eventually. Glad to meet you! How was the trip over from the Bush?"

The two new crew members looked at Henderson with deadpan expressions, not certain what the girl ate to make her so bloody chipper at this hour of the morning. They both silently hoped she wouldn't be this hyper by the end of the week or they'd be having words...

 **No sick leave when you're Boss**

 _(SeaQuest – season 1 opening theme)_

 **Thursday, 20** **th** **February 2020; 08:00am**

 **UEO Flagship SeaQuest DVS 6000; Med-Bay, ICU #1**

 **Australia, northern coast, Darwin City harbor – UEO military sector**

Lucas Wolenczak was feeling crabby, tetchy, bitchy and a great many other things ending in 'y' that he wasn't thinking clearly enough to spell out right away. Give him a minute or two and he'd get to it.

Frowning one sided just doesn't have the same effect as a good two-browed frown, the boy thought as he glared at his two new workers while fighting through the haze of barely-legal pain management drugs, antibiotics calibrated for a blue whale and several doses of what he could swear was medical marijuana THC extract from Canada's BC Gold. And yes, having gone to Stanford he had experimented a few times and the benefits of eidetic memory meant he could easily differentiate the tastes and effects of several types of _green joy_ even five years later. Yeeesss, he'd been 11 years old at the time. But, it was a learning experience and he needed to know the feeling of intoxication to spot a spiked drink or food item to avoid being hurt or kidnapped.

Focusing his one good flint-blue eye on the two reprobates in front of him, he studiously ignored the doctor from the Bush Carrier Group that was processing the change in containers attached to his bladder and bowel catheters. Besides, the 21 year old female nurse fiddling with the IV bottles was much better looking and closer to his age than the 57 year old grey-headed male anyways.

Using his tablet to emulate his voice, Lucas addressed the two master divers he had acquired. "Piccolo and Williams. Both straight from the good cares of the JAG. By the rebound of courts martial and having enjoyed some of our great nation's armor-plated hospitality in Leavenworth. Both wrongly accused. Both wrongly tried by judges who were lied to by the prosecutors who were sponsored by one admiral McGillivray of the UEO Navy's Department of Experimental Sciences and Applied Technologies to do so. We are still at this point trying to find both the motives and the admiral himself as he as taken an impromptu retirement without cashing out his pension. Or leaving an address. Anything to add?"

The two young men shook their heads in unison, intimidated by the sheer amount of pipes, wires and bandages that wrapped around the moving mummy in the extra-wide bed. The kid was younger than them by a decade but neither would hold that against him. Not after they saw the reports and certainly not after the tandem reaming out given them by Hitchcock and O'Neil at 06:00am sharp this morning right before breakfast. This was the Chief of Mammal Engineering and their new supervisor for the foreseeable future. They were warned clearly about his age, his mind and his temperament. They also got special personally delivered messages from the very mouths of admiral Noyce and captain Darby about what kind of cooperation was expected of them or they would get acquainted with colonel Dirnova's newly revamped security team post-haste.

Now Piccolo and Williams may be young and hot headed, but they weren't idiots, let alone inbred redneck _idjiots_ from the deep old south in the bog. They knew full damn well who had data mined their cases, compiled the proofs, found witnesses and demonstrated the cameras and microphones in the rooms had all been tampered to insure a verdict of guilt by whomever heard the cases. They had been set up to swing high and short but it was the little guy in front of them that saw the ruse and fought for their freedom. And got Noyce to back them up in front of JAG too! No, these two weren't gonna give the kid a hard time. Well, maybe not at first. Once he was back on his feet though, they'd have to show him their appreciation for his efforts...

Lucas just felt a wave of dread go through his entire body as he saw the weird matching smirks on the young adults and groaned in dismay. He'd gone and brought two more 'Ben' aboard and put them in his department. He was so screwed...

 **Rolling wounded**

 _(SeaQuest – season 1 opening theme)_

 **Thursday, 20** **th** **February 2020; 08:00am**

 **UEO Flagship SeaQuest DVS 6000; Med-bay, CR #1**

 **Australia, northern coast, Darwin City harbor – UEO military sector**

Katherine Hitchcock, newly minted 1st mate, Ex-O and all around 'Boss of the Boat' under the captain was huffing and puffing her way through the laborious ordeal of transferring to her wheelchair after having finished with the bathroom facilities. She took a few seconds to catch her breath and grumped at her lack of upper body strength. That had never been in the requirements for the engineering positions she had accepted! Ah, damn! Well, no use bitching about it now. Plastering on her semi-detached, professional face with the fake pleasant smile, she opened the door and rolled back into the room proper.

Marcus Shan, the ship's bosun, was sitting in his own wheelchair next to the bed and happily munching on the remainders of her cold toast and cheese slice as if they hadn't fed the poor boy – man – this morning. Humph! What was it with men and food? Ben was the exact same way. Wheeling her way to the side of the other _semi-valid_ sailor, she extended a hand and grabbed the cup with the rest of her coffee. At least, the thick lidded plastic cup had kept the important part of breakfast warm and pleasant for her enjoyment after the mediocre experience in the washroom.

"So commander, I was thinking – _Munch!_ \- What will we do today? - _Crunch!_ \- I mean, it's not like I can go around the ship telling people to look lively in this condition. - _Munch!"_ Shan asked between bites of purloined toast.

Kathy pursed her lips in dismay at the fact she had no idea herself when the answer came in the form of a JAG lawyer that came from the carrier group early this morning. The older gentleman introduced himself politely in a low, warm voice and shook hands with both wounded before revealing the reason for his presence. He needed to take the depositions of all the wounded in order to process the _injury compensation claims_ so they could have their full pay and benefits as well as adjusting their _special medical compensation_ for having been victimized in the line of work by acts of terrorism and treason.

Both wounded sailors looked at the pile of paperwork and wondered if Bridger had indeed been so kind in not killing them after all.

 **Take it easy, man!**

 _(SeaQuest – season 1 opening theme)_

 **Thursday, 20** **th** **February 2020; 12:00pm - noon**

 **UEO Flagship SeaQuest DVS 6000; Med-bay, ICU #1**

 **Australia, northern coast, Darwin City harbor – UEO military sector**

Admiral William Noyce was not laughing. No, he was definitely not laughing at all. Despite the hilarious situation and the conditions for much garrulous bombast having been assembled, he was most certainly not laughing out loud at the poor teenager as he was being fed what amounted to syrupy paste through the pipe in the side of his throat. The look on Lucas's face was downright clowny as he experienced some of the taste by the way of air bubbles pushing the odor up to his mouth, making him burp it out and into his nose. Apparently, the stuff was foul and should not be used on kids, even those in a rehab clinic against sucrose abuse. There really was such a thing as _too sweet_ in life!

After his second dose of liquid sustenance of the day had been given, the poor kid was raised a bit so he could see his visitor without having to strain his neck. He had undergone another bout of surgery between briefing his two new divers and now. He had in fact just awakened from the general anesthesia when the nurse with the bio-diesel bucket had come in. Honestly! They could have filled him up when he slept and avoided him the feeling and taste of this granulous slurry.

Doctor Saritsatva walked in, tablet in hand, while conferring with her colleague from the Bush Group about what surgeries Lucas needed to undergo next and when. They were both surprised to see the admiral this early in the day.

Meetha took the lead: "Namaste, admiral Noyce. I trust the night has brought you peace? Our three patients are going along much better than we had any right to anticipate. The fact that Lucas can in fact be conscious enough to think clearly and manage some of his non-physical tasks is a lesser miracle of Vishnu's grace at this point."

The old sailor nodded somberly at the female medic. "What was he operated for this morning? Anything grave?"

Meetha pursed her lips in thought, then sighed despondently. "At this juncture, it is all grave for him. But some things, even those that do not threaten his life, must be tended in an orderly fashion or the rest of his healing will not happen properly or leave handicaps. As for this morning, we needed to adjust the metal bracings outside his skull and jaw, then we did some preventative mouth work to remove the last teeth fragments that were still inside the gums but useless. These would have eventually rotted and developed infections that could have compromised the recovery of all the other injuries. And since he was under the general anesthesia anyways, we took care of everything we could around his head all at the same time. The arm and ribs are already completely done and mending as predicted. The last real unknowns left are the eye and swelling of the diaphragm. The brain swelling is already reduced noticeably and progressing well from the indicators we have."

William snorted in good humor at the gentle teenager's predicament. "I always knew he was a hardheaded runt but Janet never believed me. Well, ha! I was right!"

The hindu doctor smirked at his pronouncement and asked _sotto voce_ "Will you be telling her that or will I?"

Noyce glared at her malevolently for destroying his poor, harmless fun like that. It wasn't everyday that he could get one up on his wife's motherly instincts when they ran rampant.

The voice coming from the speakers interrupted their friendly banter. "If you are both done exploiting my weakened state for you personal pleasures, mayhaps we can proceed to more constructive activities instead? But please, don't feel pushed into it by my opinion. I'm just the county fair's _weirdo of the week_ exhibition; we all know my opinion doesn't count for real."

Noyce and Saritsatva were both quite impressed by the vocalizer's ability to reproduce the young man's voice and linguistic mannerisms. It even sounded like he did when he was peeved and affected a snobby, stuck-up attitude. Even the fake self-deprecation and passive-aggressive tones were well pronounced and came out naturally. Not that either of them thought it in anyway funny... It was just professional admiration for the exploit of producing such an important piece of technology that would help mute or blind patients who needed a read-aloud system...

Yeah, alright, it was hysterical, the way the poor kid was managing to throw a wobbly at them without even making a real effort at it. - Snort! - Teenagers! Always moody and tetchy...

William waved away the doctors and sat besides the boy, on the right side of the bed so his one good eye could track him without effort. "So, I hear you chewed out your poor new divers before they even got a good look at you. Impressive way to take charge of the team. I could almost make you a commander just for that one." Noyce spoke out, amused by the boy's determination to handle his two departments, no matter his present situation.

Lucas' voice came from the ceiling, softer but firm; "They are good men, admiral. A bit hot blooded, perhaps, but good people with a strong character and a need to show that goodness to others. They both had rough childhoods, with harmful households and no community support to be had. SeaQuest will be their community from now on, and I will be the responsible, stable adult they need to help determine their growth and their professional stance from now on."

Noyce smiled widely, satisfied that the more he spoke, the more Lucas sounded as sane, stable and deeply reliable as he had always been. The injuries had not robbed them of the most important, vital piece of the coming plans. The US President had been apoplectic last night when he had heard about the grievous injuries suffered by the child during the traitors' escape. Now, they had the first good news in a long time, not that Hitchcock's and Shan's health didn't matter. It was simply that the president had elaborated a scheme that hinged on Lucas being mentally healthy enough to express himself in public and be credible when he did so.

Taking a deep breath, William ordered his thoughts before he could speak of the very delicate subject. Turning around he gestured at the two marines stationed at the door to close and secure the entry until he came out. Facing Lucas again, he could see the boy's right hand going around the touchscreen tablet, giving the systems the orders needed to secure the room and close down all surveillance equipments thus entombing them in anonymity.

"All right, Kiddo; Now I have to ask this." Noyce spoke slowly as he passed his tongue over his lips, trying to figure out a way to get into the subject. "Have you ever thought about going into politics? It's a good way to serve the People and a good career, if you have the platform and the backing."

The teenager gave the admiral the gimlet eye with the only functioning one he had and grunted in disbelief. At his age? He was 16 years old! WTF would he want with a political career? He had a pair of departments depending on him with about a dozen research projects that he should now be able to start up since Bridger wasn't here anymore to stop him from using the stations, cabinets and office space he was renting from the UEO aboard ship. And all that didn't take into account his company that made the gaseous displays and many other consumer objects; he still had to manage that too along the way. Where in the bloody blue blazes did the fat rat bastard see any time for politics in there?

Seeing the completely fake wan smile and patently nauseating solicitous attitude of the older mariner, Lucas could only snort in anxiety about what other bolt from Fate would smack down on his poor undeserving head. This would not end well for him.

 **O'Neil's new headache**

 _(SeaQuest – season 1 opening theme)_

 **Thursday, 20** **th** **February 2020; 13:00pm**

 **UEO Flagship SeaQuest DVS 6000; Main Engineering**

 **Australia, northern coast, Darwin City harbor – UEO military sector**

Senior lieutenant, soon-to-be lieutenant-commander & 2nd mate, Timothy O'Neil was not a happy sailor, no he was not. And the admiral was gonna hear 'bout this. How in tarnation were they supposed to work honestly like this?

The injured sailor laid his aching head on his shaking hands, resting on the large command console he was in the process of validating post-refit. It was among many that Bridger's men had ripped apart to keep them from getting the boat back under control easily. Now it was brand new; rebuilt according to designs and a set of parts built by Lucas that had been rotting away in a hidden, locked room, not even wrapped or tagged properly.

Treasonous curs!

Tim had never before taken the time to do a systematic search and survey of the ship's internal space. As every other man aboard, he had trusted the admiralty and the Ex-O to do the right thing when they sent her to drydock for a retrofit and new mission statement that included research labs, civilian contractors and private company reps staying all year long aboard. The officers and enlisted men had expected the civilians to have better living quarters and private offices because they would be charged for it a rather heavy price.

This had been confirmed by all of the newcomers, including Lucas when he had arrived and then been promptly set aside by the drydock's commissioning crew. He threw a monumental fit when first Ford, then Bridger, set him aside like last week's trash and told him to accommodate himself of the shitpit he was consigned to or get off the boat. The usually mild mannered, gentle teen had pulled out the contracts, invoices and proofs of payments sent & received to prove his claim. He was owed a private stateroom in the senior officers' area and a private – **secure** \- enclosed office to house and work his classified projects for the militaries of the USA, NATO and the UEO as these were the reasons that he was aboard. All of which had been denied or set aside for later arguments by the two top officers as if the young man was either lying or hallucinating. And they had very vocally made many assertions to that effect, in front of the crew, in the logs and in every electronic communication they had with anybody.

Ford had said at the time that there wasn't the place, no matter what the EUO said about the boat's internal specs. Bridger had then said the same, but with some threats that Ford did not have the rank or clout to make. Weeelll, it so happens that old man Nate didn't have the power for it either. It had all been glitter-dust to get the crew off the scent and stop asking the questions they should have gotten answers to before the ship even powered up the fusion core.

Timothy had spent his morning since 07:00am touring the ship to become more familiar with its inner workings as the fundamental job of 2nd mate was the inspection of the mechanical and technical departments. He needed to become much more aware of the departments and the people in them, not just the communications people as in the past.

As it stood, the chain of command stipulated that the 1st mate / Ex-O had responsibility for security, weapons, the quartermaster's services, the administrative services and generally backing-up the captain. Kristen Westphalen, the chief of science, was in charge of the UEO's list of projects for both military and civilian researchers and also supervised the company reps, excluding Lucas.

Joseph Levine was chief of medicine and answered to either the Ex-O or the captain. Lucas as chief of Mammal Engineering and Computational Analysis answered the 2nd mate or the captain. Neither situation pleased Westphalen and she had complained long and hard about it, and the captain actually agreed with her. BUT the admiralty had set this hierarchy in stone and neither Levine nor Lucas wanted to budge, to Bridger's great anger. The old man had felt his power over his ship was being usurped by the UEO admiralty with such fine-tuning of the administrative structure.

All in all, the trio of criminals had done as much damage as they could in the few months they had each been present onboard. Ford had been passable as a manager and commander until Lucas and Westphalen joined the crew roster, then it became open war. The male officer had taken instant, deep dislike against the boy and sided with the female doctor at every chance he got to destroy his reputation or waylay his projects, equipments and work product. Ford was particularly stubborn about giving out orders verbally, never in writing, and then bitching publicly about the work not getting done.

On the only occasion that Lucas had done work without a written ' _work ticket_ ' the commander had tried to bring him up on false charges of damaging the UEO Navy's property, accessing restricted areas without a valid permit and espionage for having held or seen classified materials without the security level to do so. Fortunately, admiral Noyce was watching the ship's messages with UEO Central and intervened to regularize the whole mess and serve Ford with a formal written reprimand for his idiotic behavior.

Westphalen constantly tried to snoop into the projects and work product that Lucas had to handle despite the fact she had neither right, rank or clearance to do so. Her authority was over some civilians and specific military because they were low-level people and had severe protocols and restrictions to follow to get the work done and delivered on time to the UEO's testing labs.

There was NO connection between her and Lucas, not even a ' _dotted-line_ ' rapport of officious or customary authority, despite all that she, Ford and Bridger had tried to install such. Lucas had two independent, government-funded departments and all his projects were done PRIVATELY on his own money, materials and time. Since he was not financed by the UEO and didn't get any subsidies, bursaries or other monetary help, then the ship's executives had neither say nor power over his work unless it threatened the safety and functionality of the ship. Lucas only had to show his station and office to the 2nd mate or chief of security for monthly inspections and that was that.

And that was the situation that O'Neil faced now after his damned morning. Bridger had been so rabidly against letting Lucas have any autonomy or good reputation of any sort that he tried many times to overturn the whole contract, going so far as to deny the boy the cabin and office he was supposed to have. The former captain had claimed that the UEO made several mistakes; the compartments noted in the contract were either not ready as the refit job wasn't finished in those areas or they didn't exist as the reconstruction had redone a sector of the structure.

In plain language, Bridger was lying his face off to keep Lucas in the shitpit where Ford put him and tolerated no one to object or suggest alternatives. Even just letting the kid sleep on one's couch had been motive for getting a written reprimand for fraternization against the rules. Snort! Could the geriatric crud be any more transparent about his paranoid delusions?

And then there was the real kicker: the parts, the work products, the blueprints and programs... All the stuff that had been hidden, squirreled away into locked rooms whose identification plates had been removed. Several cabins and offices that were free had been placarded and then been set in the ship's billeting system as either not-there, damaged, out-of-order or just plain erased when they could get away with it. Those secret locked rooms became the reason so many civilians had angrily written home to their companies to start complaints for breach of contracts and refusal to honor the ' _secured & confidential lodgings_' clauses of their agreements with the UEO.

Ford had started the depravity, then Bridger too, had used these out of the way rooms to hide or waylay anything that came aboard that they didn't like or wanted to make disappear. They had a hidden locked room for every type of thing that irked them: physical mail, computer programs, blueprints & chemical formulae, tools, parts from the UEO's manufactures, and of course, anything that Lucas ordered for use by his two departments, his company or just for his personal needs. They hijacked, detoured and stole for about eight million dollars worth of programs and parts just from Lucas. Another million from three dozen other people in personal effects. And the ever-popular 31 million dollars of spare parts, tools and software's that should have gone towards finishing the blasted retrofit while at sea.

Bridger didn't want the ship finished according to the UEO sanctioned plans. He didn't want anybody telling him what to fix or how since it was his design, his build, his brain-child. HE would make the decisions, the plans and then guide the repairs – nobody else. Ever. It was now apparent that the man had not been stable in a long time. He had even stowed away medical equipments and pharmaceuticals, out of Levine's reach as he didn't trust the man who was too close and friendly with Lucas for his tastes.

All morning long, Timothy walked around all five decks and found room after room that had been locked with plastic placards indicating 'work in progress' or 'danger' or 'reserved'. More than 22 compartments in all. Even on a boat of SeaQuest's girth, that was a whole bloody lot of sealed, unused square footage. And nobody had been aware. Not even Benjamin Krieg who was quartermaster as he never checked those closed rooms as they were supposed to fall under the purview of the chief engineer as part of the mechanical maintenance roster.

Each of the cursed 22 compartments had been slowly filling with stuff, spider webs and dust. Several offices promised to important contractors or departments would finally become active. All the personnel who were promised an individual or corporate cabin would be getting it by the end of the week at long last. The sea-deck would finally be allocating its work stations and offices according to the agreements signed, not by who Westphalen, Ford & Bridger favored anymore. And the four 'shitpit' maintenance rooms would all be turned back into simple machinery closets instead of the impromptu out-of-the-way punitive barracks they had been converted into by Ford while they were still in dock.

O'Neil raised his head and looked at the paper blueprints with its list of software's. This had been made almost six months ago by Lucas, before he came aboard the ship. It was an innovative design to replace the old console by a better, more efficient and secure system. He had manufactured the parts at his company's workshops in San-Francisco before coming to New Cape Quest in Florida. This was supposed to be his first major contribution to the ship and be installed in the first week aboard, followed by others all around the ship, including the bridge. It never happened. Ford took one look at the person who made the equipment and locked it up in a yet-unassigned cabin, away from Lucas, and then promptly blamed the kid for not supplying the parts or doing the install as he was slated to. The man's hypocrisy was outmatched only by his twisted, sick desire to dominate and hurt Lucas for no reason they had ever been able to discern.

Pivoting his chair completely around, the new 2nd officer addressed his captain, chief of security and the two newbies for the Computational Analysis Dept. "It looks good from what I can see. One down, about another 62 consoles and devices to identify, test and put in place. IF we don't find a few others hidden in the ventilation pipes or the cesstanks on deck-E."

Darby grunted his understanding. The whole mess stank to high heavens and then Noyce would want to get involved. At least they still had a group of SeaBees aboard to help with all the search & install they had to speed-process before the ship was finally truly in shape to sail without escort.

 **Darwinian theories**

 _(SeaQuest – season 1 opening theme)_

 **Thursday, 20** **th** **February 2020; 13:00pm**

 **UEO Flagship SeaQuest DVS 6000; Deck-A – moon-pool (sea-deck)**

 **Australia, northern coast, Darwin City harbor – UEO military sector**

Seaman 3rd class Anthony Piccolo was in a bind. His new workmate, Edward Williams wasn't any help either, the scurvy dog...

Pfffooot! And another blast of wet air right in the face. Poor Tony passed a hand over his face, trying to dry himself while also glaring at the oversized piece of flapping, squealing sea life in front of him. Eddy was quite helpfully laughing his head off from a safe distance away. Traitor!

The dolphin. Yes. A bloody grey and white, 7 foot long, squirmy, squealing dolphin. A juvenile bottlenose, if the resident veterinarian was to be believed. Tony didn't care at the moment. What he cared about was the fact he felt like he would never be dry again as long as he had this job.

Squeee! Hrweee! Eeee! The sea mammal went, shaking his head sideways rapidly, almost angry at something the two humans didn't understand.

"Oy! What are you doing with Darwin?" A loud voice called out from the far side of the moon-pool, catching the attention of all three sentients.

The dolphin launched upwards, spinning around to land face first in the water for a plunge to the bottom of the pool that took him upwards in a curved pass right next to the new arrival. Surfacing with a wide splash of water, the mammal chittered excitedly at the human male with a clear familiarity.

"Okay, okay, buddy! Just let me get the machine up and running. I ain't Lucas, I don't work that fast." The officer walked around the pool, letting his hand trail in the cool sea water with the dolphin following him like an eager child begging after a treat.

Piccolo and Williams saw the man was in his thirties, caucasian with a tanned complexion, short black hair and green eyes. He seemed at ease around the pool and its inhabitant as he looked over the setup along the way. Coming to the 'front' of the pool, he put his thumb on the scanner of a locking cabinet and took out a large yellow handheld device with a black antenna and raised keypad. Closing the cabinet again, he brought the device over to the two seamen and gestured for them to come forward.

"Okay newbies, this here critter is your best friend from now on. The alternative being a brassed-off teenager with a lot of friends in the admiralty." He spoke with a smirk and easy disposition. "Oh, and I'm Ben Krieg, lieutenant and quartermaster for this boatload of flotsam. This – _he points the mammal_ – is Darwin. Now, **Ensign** Darwin here outranks you and is your secondary Boss after Lucas, capisce? The way to speak with your new _mini-boss_ is this nifty invention by the good graces of the _medium-boss_ , the vocoder. You activate like so... And then slide your badge here in this slot and then the access PIN by the keypad, and voila!"

Turning towards the playful, smiling dolphin, Krieg asked "Heya Darwin! How's it going buddy? Have you eaten anything today?"

Before the stupefied gaze of the two sailors, the dolphin nodded vigorously its massive head and answered in plain english spread around the entire sea-deck by the wall-inset speakers. "Ben-friend. Yes. Darwin eat. Darwin hunt fish! Many! Many! Gooood fish! Lucas where? Lucas water. Work too much. Need water. Lucas play water. Make Lucas happy again."

The two flabbergasted sailors could only stand still in complete shock at their first sight of a clear case of inter-species communication with verbal language. Like any child born and raised in North America, they had been taught in school about the mental capacities of many animals to understand some words and react. Dogs, horses, several types of birds, and especially gorillas and chimpanzees had been explained at diverse moments in classes about biology, ecology and the animal kingdom. And every sailor that was enlisted heard about the old dolphin training programs from the cold war era.

But nothing could prepare them for this. This, the technology involved, was second only to finding extra-terrestrials from outer-space that can communicate intelligently. The two young men walked closer to the water's edge, a movement that brought the attention of the mammal and human to them for just a second before Krieg delivered his sad message.

"I'm sorry pal. Lucas was injured yesterday. It's bad enough that he can't move for a long time. He will come to you as soon as we can help him move again. I know he is already trying to connect the room he's in with the cameras and speakers to be able to speak with you anywhere he can. It will take a few days but he'll get it done."

"Lucas-friend hurt? Bad hurt? Bridger not help Lucas? Why? Pod help pod always! Why not help Lucas? Where Bridger? Darwin splash Bridger! Darwin not happy! Lucas-friend-pod hurt! Why?"

The upset sea mammal stood up half-way out of the water, vertically with his large head shaking and bobbing every which way in emotional turmoil at learning the very basics of the past day as Benjamin tried to explain what happened and why. Not that the poor man had a whole lot to go on.

"So you see Darwin, it's because his son was killed the way he was that Bridger became angry the way he did. He stopped caring. He lost his faith in our pod. He began to see us as enemies, as sharks, and attacked us for it. Ford hurt Lucas, but Bridger allowed it. The bad shark-people left our pod and now we are trying to heal."

Darwin was now floating listlessly, listening raptly, trying to understand the way that Ben explained things. The older human was not Lucas but he was the second most gentle, most patient human to interact with Darwin aboard the ship. Even though his attempt to speak dolphin was funny like shrimp trying to swim away from him when he fed. Poor two-legs; he tried so hard to help...

"Darwin bite Bridger. Bridger-shark hurt friend-pod. I will not accept. Lucas pod-mate to Darwin. Water and wind tell me this. Darwin take care of pod for now. Human-Levine come Darwin. Tell me what hurt Lucas. Darwin find greenies to help Lucas. Eat greenies and get better again."

Ben was at a loss. The dolphin rarely spoke so much with anybody other than their teenaged genius so he didn't have a clue what this was all about. Well, that's not true: he could understand maybe 60% of what was said. The sea-dweller was actually rather clear in his meanings, it was only a few specific concepts that were not translating well. Plus the smirky smile on his snout that made Ben feel as if the big fish was laughing at him all the time they were together.

Running a hand through his short hair, the officer answered "Okay fish-face, I will get Levine to come talk with you. He should have time when lunch is over. Now; these here are Piccolo and Williams. They are now part of our crew and will work with you until Lucas is back to his old self."

Turning to the reality-shocked humans, Krieg snorted in humor and told them "Like I said, here's your new _mini-boss_. Take care of him right or you'll wind up in med-bay real fast. The surest way to piss off Lucas is to hurt Darwin. It'll be a slow and messy way off the boat for you if you do that."

The two scared nods were quite amusing to behold. Giving a last wave to his non-human friend, Ben decided to go back to med-bay and see the little guy. Maybe him and Noyce would be done and he could finally see him in person to get the truth of how bad it all was.

 **Dumb politicians! Oh, yeah, that's me now...**

 _(SeaQuest – season 1 opening theme)_

 **Thursday, 20** **th** **February 2020; 13:45pm**

 **UEO Flagship SeaQuest DVS 6000; Med-bay, ICU #1**

 **Australia, northern coast, Darwin City harbor – UEO military sector**

Ben walked into the waiting area of the medical sector with a lot of angst, doubts and self-loathing swirling inside of him like warm acid, burning and corroding everything inside as it moved. He sighed out softly, still not able to process mentally, let alone emotionally, what had happened to their littlest friend at the hands of people who had taken oaths to protect everyone aboard.

Running a hand through his short black hair, Ben wondered what Lucas would be like. He had been doped up for almost 24 hours straight and undergone several surgeries already. According to the nurse he had spoken with at lunch in the main mess hall, he had even held meetings with the Brass and his two new divers. Humph! Trust the tetchy little runt to not know when to take it easy! Even when laid out on his back, knocking on Death's Door, he still made the rest of them look like lazy bums.

Swallowing passed a sudden lump in his throat, Krieg wondered just what changes the boy's personality would have suffered. He had been a gentle-souled kid, with soft manners and caring, altruistic emotions towards practically everybody he met. Injuries to the head tended to alter the mind, but betrayal could destroy a soul, creating a monster. Ben hoped Lucas's soul had survived intact.

Girding his courage, the 33 year old man walked to ICU-1 and, after identifying himself to the two marines on guard faction, knocked playfully on the door jamb to announce his presence. Not that it was necessary, the door was open, well in sight of the patient who was slightly raised on his bed. The one blue eye visible in the bandage covered head swiveled comically in a teenaged eye roll and a synthetic voice emanated from the speakers in the ceiling: "Come on in Ben, the big bad admiral slunk back to his den to torture innocent souls at his leisure while I stew in my juice over the barge of crud he dumped on me."

Advancing carefully as he looked over the wires, tubes and support poles all around the bed, Benjamin made a face at the choice of words his friend had used. Lucas was obviously still upset about things from yesterday, but Noyce had to go dump more on him to boot. What was it with the people from DC and NCQ that they couldn't grasp the simple concept of ' _enough_ '?

"Okay Kiddo; what was it the big bad baldy beach ball wanted to foist on you now?" the adult asked with a bratty attitude and a satisfied smirk when the teen actually coughed out some laughter through the hole in his throat. ' _Hummm that must be weird to feel..._ '

Using his good hand, Lucas typed on his tablet: "I'll get you for that one Ben! Making me laugh like that! Don't you have any pity on the poor sick kid? You're mean, you are! I'll tell Kathy on you, see if I don't!" The boy expressed with a silent attempt at smiling despite the metal fixtures around his mouth and skull. It looked weird in an ' _Ouch that must hurt_ ' kinda way, but at least the kid was trying and seemed to have kept up his good spirits some.

"Oooh! You'll tell Kathy! What could she do right now, anyways? She's laid out like you. Not much of a threat, you know..." the lieutenant goaded the boy.

Lucas' answering smirk wasn't comforting the older man. "Well, with her wheelchair she could run you down and leave skid marks in your _puurrty widdle_ face you're so proud of, then we'd be a matching set" the teen joked back "or she could use her new position as Ex-O to have you redo all your inventories manually. Without any help from anybody. Who knows? She part of the ' _Brass_ ' now, and nobody really understand how those people work in their heads."

Ben dropped himself gracelessly on the stiff plastic chair near the bed, in view of the boy's good eye, and made a face as he thought that one through. "You're right! I hadn't thought about it. Kate's gone and made herself a Big Head now. Wonder what she'll be like, all orderly and proper from now on. She was already stiff as a wooden board, I don't see it improving any..." The older male blinked interrogatively at his bedridden friend when he saw the wide, lopsided grin on the exposed part of his face.

"Is that any way to speak of your new superior officer, lieutenant? I hear colonel Dirnova's revamping her brig, maybe you'd like to help her? Hummm, from inside the cells, to tell her how uncomfortable they are? I'm sure she'd be appreciative of your efforts." Sounded the playful voice of a clearly amused Katherine right behind Benjamin's back.

The man startled so badly he had to catch himself on the bed frame to avoid falling to the floor and placed a shaking hand to his heaving chest, hoping to still his runaway heart. Glaring mightily at his ex-wife's smirking face, he settled back in his chair, wondering how in tarnation the woman had become so proficient with that wheeled contraption that she could move silently like that. And now Shan was rolling in too! What was this, a ' _Survivors of Bridger's Revolt_ ' convention?

"Hey guys, nice to see you rolling around. And somewhat conscious as well. I thought you'd both be knocked out by the meds by now." the voice from the ceiling welcomed them.

Marcus snorted, amused at the kid. "Nah, you know Meetha keeps the good stuff just for you. We had the cheap generic leftovers that Levine could scrounge after she went through inventory to make certain her _poor little kid_ wasn't missing out on anything. Only the best for our little blond cutie-pie, ain't that right Kate?" the ship's bosun ribbed him back good and hard.

Hitchcock shook her head despondently: "After all the years of service, the training, the sacrifices and getting shot, kidnapped, tormented and spoken down to by _macho_ pigs, you'd think I rated better than some Tylenol and a cold compress to take home, but no... The fragile, delicate little porcelain genius is more important and had to go first..." Kathy piled on right alongside of Shan's own joke.

Ben was now shaking with laughter at the horrified face Lucas made. ' _1, 2 and 3..._ ' he thought as he counted down the time it took his pal to reboot his mind to type out a reply to those clearly exaggerated or humorous statements. The kid really didn't know how to distinguish jokes when he was the one receiving them.

The voice from above sounded again, this time with a clearly aghast tone to it: "I am most certainly not weak or fragile! And dammit all: I ain't delicate! As for Dr Saritsatva giving me the better stuff or handling me before others, well the woman simply has an astute sense of priorities. She clearly understands you couldn't make the boat float without me to hold your hands while you work." the teen completed with a shit-eating grin on the visible side of mouth.

Kathy and Shan were protesting loudly the sideswipe at their competency and worth when Lucas added brattily "At least you actually work for me to need to hold your hand during it, unlike some others who just stand around waiting for the job to do itself by some miracle of technologies not yet invented."

The two wheel-bound sailors guffawed at the expense of Benjamin who was now defending his work product and capacities against the unexpected attack. Damn, the blasted little runt! Even in agony he managed to make an ass of his older friend!

After a few more minutes of laughing the humor out of their systems, the people calmed down and began the usual hospital small talk about injuries, treatments and the lacking bedside manners of doctors who treated them like cars on the blocks in a chop-shop. Lucas, pointing at his multiple tubing's, called dibs on the comparison to a botched oil change, much to the amusement of the other three.

"Hey Luke" Ben asked with a smirk, knowing just how much his friend did not like his name getting shortened or changed "What did Noyce want that has you so steamed up?"

Taking a long, difficult breath, Lucas replied gloomily "He wants to steal my soul and sell it a piece at a time on the black market like in the time of slave auctions. Is that clear enough for you?"

Marcus frowned and replied for the group of adults "It can't be that bad! Besides, its obvious the guy likes you and trusts you something weird for anybody in any Intelligence Agency. He wouldn't do anything harsh, not after Bridger and Ford."

"Come on Lucas" Katherine said in her most soothing voice, trying to coax the teen into confiding to them what ailed him "We can't help or support you if you bottle it up inside and don't give us a chance to understand the problem."

Swallowing hard, the teenager nodded weakly, trying to remember not to move his damaged neck and spine too much. "The orders come from the White House. Even if Noyce thinks its on the outer perimeter of crazy, we don't have any choice about this. There are new orders coming down the pipes and we will have to adapt or leave. But, one way or the other, it will happen and the way things are done and controlled on board will never be the same."

Ben frowned in concentration, trying to figure out what exactly his young friend could have coming at him that would be so terrible. Given his injuries on one hand and his exalted genius on the other, there wasn't a whole lot that could be asked of him that would be that bad.

The synthetic voice sounded again: "The President has been contemplating the command situation aboard for several months now. Since about six months before we left drydock, in fact. He was keenly aware of the tensions between career military personnel, civilian hirelings and contractor reps. Then I came aboard and things got weird in a bad way. Well, because of all that tension and the power struggles and the lack of adaptation from the sailors to the new normal, the POTUS had an idea."

Lucas went silent to let the collective groan pass. Yes, the President's style of commandment wasn't the best thing in the world and his ideas tended to be thrown around like spit-wads, but he was the Commander-in-Chief and this was his new directive, so...

Lucas took a good three minutes to organize his thoughts and type out the phrases in a cognizant way so the less scholarly people could understand on the first go. Not that the baseline concepts were hard to grasp. The underlying logic of it all, though... Well, it was President D.J. Trump who'd come up with it so there would be plenty of loopholes and backdoors to find and exploit in due time.

"The President has come to the conclusion that the SeaQuest is simply too much power and responsibility for a single man alone to carry on his shoulders like the other boats of the US Navy or the UEO Forces. Honestly though, compared to an aircraft carrier, I don't see how we're worse but he's the Boss and he pays for it, sooo... Anyways, the Man had this _brilliant idea_ to treat the SQ like a municipality rather than a simple navy boat. This means he intends to establish a permanent Ship Council composed of the career military department heads on one side and elected civilian councilors on the other side. The Leadership would then rest on the newly elected Mayor while the Captain would be relegated to being just an executant, like the Ex-O, 2nd Officer and so on down the line."

"The only real changes would be in the security and medical departments. Security would become like a municipal police system with boosted add-ons and would have a more complex task in how they relate to the citizens aboard. The med-bay people would be split down the middle between military medics and civilian medics, with some _legal spaghetti verbiage_ in the descriptions of the tasks and authority chains that Noyce hasn't shown me yet. On those two fronts, I can foresee a lot more trouble than with the commandment of the boat or deciding where we sail next."

"Also, the good Mister Trump is pushing the UEO to accept that the electoral process be opened to each and every _Sentient Being_ aboard the ship for the purposes of either presenting themselves to the open council positions or voting. That means that the intention publicly stated by the Oval office is to abrogate unilaterally, for SeaQuest only as a testing group, the minimal voting age and the species-based restrictions with the purpose of allowing me and Darwin to vote. In my case specifically, Noyce has warned me that the White House has basically ordered that I present myself for the Mayor's job right at the first election."

The open-mouthed fish-like gaping of disbeliefs was funny for about a minute before Lucas began to feel some irritation about it. WTF? Did they think he was too young and immature to hold the job down? Did they really feel like he couldn't do better than Stark, Bridger or Ford, despite that anybody who didn't turn out a traitor had essentially passed the bar of success already? What the Hell were these so-called friends of his thinking about now?

Lucas was sinking into a good and proper funk when Marcus guffawed out loud, breaking the paralysis that held the other two. "Hey guys, we have the newest member of the ' _so useless they promoted him to the top so he's out of the way of the working guys_ ' league for a friend! Who knew he'd get recognized for his full value so early in life!"

The explosion of laughter that followed had Lucas wish he could still cross his arms over his chest and pout properly. Having only one mobile arm and less than half a face just didn't produce the same effect as a good two-armed, fully frowned pout. Damn this shitpit of a crud's life, anyways!


End file.
